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CANADIAN NIGHTS 



CANADIAN NIGHTS 

BEING SKETCHES AND REMINISCENCES OF 

LIFE AND SPORT IN THE ROCKIES 

THE PRAIRIES, AND THE 

CANADIAN WOODS 



BY 



THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN 

M 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNEITS SONS 

597-599 FIFTH AVENUE 

1914 



MO 15 






Printed by Ballantvne, Hanson & Co. 
at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh 



'Y- 



*o 9? 



? 






CONTENTS 

PAGE 

WILLIE WHISPER i 

A COLORADO SKETCH 20 

WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS ... 51 

MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 100 

SHEEP-HUNTING IN THE MOUNTAINS . . 151 

NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES . . 194 

DAYS IN THE WOODS 247 



CANADIAN NIGHTS 

WILLIE WHISPER 

YEARS ago, it matters not when, it was my 
not unpleasant fate to spend an idle week 
in the woods, and the memory of it is still 
fresh in my mind. 

It was late in the autumn. The glorious 
foliage of the hardwood trees lay like a many- 
tinted carpet on the earth, soon to be wrapped 
in its winter covering of virgin snow. The air 
was very still. Not a breath stirred the withered 
leaves of the alders fringing the river bank when I 
and a half-breed pushed off in a " dug-out " to 
force our way up stream towards the winter camp 
which my other two Indians were constructing in 
the heart of the big woods. It was bitterly cold 
under the morning star. Ice was forming rapidly 
on the reeds and sedges margining the stream. 
The water dripping from our poles froze, making 
the footing in that most rickety of vessels, a 



2 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

" dug-out," more than usually insecure. It was 
that uncomfortable interlude between summer and 
winter when the weather is not cold and dry enough 
to admit of soft caribou skin moccasins over heaps 
of woollen socks, and is much too wet and cold to 
make raw-hide knee boots comfortable wear. 

But poling up a rushing river is vigorous exer- 
cise. Presently the great sun rose in a flood of 
light, shedding genial warmth ; and as the day 
wore on towards noon we were hot enough and 
tired enough to enjoy a pannikin of strong tea, a 
piece of hard bread, a quiet smoke and a rest. 
But the rest was short. It was freezing so hard 
that it became evident that unless we pushed on 
our chance of reaching the old lumber camp at 
the head of the stream before the ice made on the 
still reaches was small indeed. So push on we 
did, forcing the canoe up with our poles where 
the open current ran strong, and breaking our way 
with our paddles through the rapidly forming ice 
on still reaches, till a little before sundown we ran 
the dug-out ashore at the old camp situated just 
above where the stream drained the still waters of 
a chain of small ponds or lakes. 

The prospect was not encouraging. Further 
progress by water was obviously impossible as 



WILLIE WHISPER 3 

long as the cold snap lasted, and it really looked as 
if it had come to stay ; but, with the philosophy 
bred by contact with nature, we cut a supply of 
maple logs and young branches of the " sapin," 
lit a big fire on the deserted hearth, made our 
fragrant beds, ate our supper, smoked our pipes, 
and curled up to sleep. 

It was in the small hours of the morning, a 
little before dawn, that I was jerked out of sleep 
by someone pulling aside the blanket we had hung 
across the doorway and walking unceremoniously 
up to the dying fire. Having raked the embers 
together and blown fresh logs into a cheerful blaze 
the newcomer pulled off his sodden cow-hide 
boots, stuck his dripping socks on two sticks to 
dry, and turning to me with a courteous old- 
fashioned inclination of the head, said, " Good 
morning, sir. It is a monstrous fine morning, 
but all nature is ashake with cold and so, by gad, 
am I ! " By this time the " voyageur " was also 
awake, and greeting the newcomer with " Bojure, 
bojure, Willie," turned to me and said under his 
breath, " He Willie Whisper. He crazy as a loon 
but no harm, just like one child." So we made 
Willie welcome, brewed some tea, handed him a 
stick of tobacco, and sat awhile to smoke. 



4 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

I had often heard of Willie Whisper, a queer 
old fellow by all accounts, an educated man, so 
'twas said, who had seen the world and knew men 
and cities, but who for some unaccountable reason 
lived solitary in the woods, coming rarely and 
with reluctance into settlements and the haunts of 
man. Quite mad, most white men thought, be- 
cause they could not understand a sane man lead- 
ing such a life ; although some said he was sane 
enough in most respects but had communings 
with ghosts, and talked and whispered with the 
trees and wild creatures and birds. All agreed 
that he was a kindly, harmless man, and the Indians 
held him in reverence and deep respect. Sitting 
there in the full light of a bright fire of sweet- 
smelling maple and birch I saw a man past middle 
age, stooping more perhaps by the weight of packs 
than of years, silvering hair falling about a fine- 
cut intellectual face ; in short, a somewhat dilapi- 
dated Englishman in coarse homespun clothes, 
ragged and unkempt, but with that air about him 
which in some men nothing can efface. Beyond 
that hall-mark of gentle breeding there was nothing 
remarkable about this remarkable man except his 
eyes and an expression upon his face difficult to 
describe — a look of sadness but of infinite patience 



WILLIE WHISPER 5 

and ineffable peace. His glance was not piercing 
or alert. It was abstracted rather. His eyes 
certainly had not what novelists describe as "a 
far away look " ; but they looked as if they saw a 
great deal more than there was to see, as if they 
saw right through everything to something be- 
yond, as though, while conscious of all his sur- 
roundings, he was perceptive also of something 
else in relation to them. His face bore an ex- 
pression as though to say, " If you knew what I 
know you would be sure, as I am, that nothing 
matters and all is well." 

Willie Whisper was, as he told us, on his way 
down but had got stuck up in the ice a few miles 
back. Winter had not set in, for the lakes were 
not full, but the cold snap would last some days, 
and he had made his way on foot to the old lumber 
camp to wait for a thaw. 

" You will have more visitors," he added ; " I 
heard them breaking the ice on the old beaver 
dam beyond long portage yesterday as the sun 
set." 

" Why ! " I cried, " that is thirty miles away." 

" Quite so, but all the same I heard them, and 
I know something about them. Two birch-bark 
canoes and, I think, six men. I cannot be certain 



6 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

of course, but I expect they will carry round the 
dead water and run down the open stream to 
the head of these ponds where the ice will stop 
them again. Some are newcomers from home, 
perhaps going hunting like yourself, but the others 
know the country, and I think you will find them 
walking in here in a couple of days." 

" Well, Willie," I said, " the more the merrier. 
If the frost holds they will be welcome." 

" To you very likely," grumbled Willie, " for the 
gentlemen hunters are of your kind, but I am not 
so sure that I shall like the others. They have 
been ranging the deep woods looking foi lumber 
and menacing my friends the trees, and have been 
searching for that solidified curse, gold." 

With that he knocked the ashes out of his pipe 
and, wrapping himself in his blanket, lay down by 
the fire. I followed his example, and slept until 
the sun was a good half -hour high. 

After breakfast — the inevitable hard tack and 
tea — Willie and I caught a mess of trout through 
a hole in the ice to eke out the very slender ration 
of fat pork that we possessed. The day had broken 
hard and clear. It was freezing in the shade, 
but a glorious sun struck hot through an atmos- 
phere absolutely still, and after our midday meal 



WILLIE WHISPER 7 

we sat with our backs against a great tree and 
smoked and talked. A most interesting talk it 
was, for the strange and fascinating companion 
that kindly fate had sent my way told me much 
about himself. That he was a cultivated gentle- 
man was plain to eye and ear. Many such are 
to be met in queer corners of the world, and 
generally the stamp of failure, sometimes also of 
disgrace, is plainly to be seen. But this man was 
different, and I had wondered by what freak of 
nature or chance of fortune one so evidently a 
product of civilisation had become a child of the 
woods and wilds. He told me about it in some- 
thing like the following words. 

" You are quite right," he said, " I have not 
drifted into this phase of existence through failure 
or disgrace. I have not forged anybody's name, 
or cheated at cards, or as a wastrel made myself 
a hopeless misery to my friends. Nor is there 
any woman in my story. I adopted this kind of 
life of my own free will, though not without many 
struggles against it, because it seemed to me the 
only thing I could do. I am an Irishman, which 
perhaps accounts for something, and a younger son 
of a politically powerful family, which certainly 
accounts for much more. I was at Harrow and 



8 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

Oxford, and I was destined for the Bar — more, I 
fancy, as introductory to some other career than 
as likely to lead to the Woolsack. By good or evil 
chance, I don't know which, a leading member of 
the party then in opposition met me in a country- 
house and took a fancy to me, and offered me a 
billet as a sort of unpaid assistant secretary. I 
was the fortunate or unfortunate possessor of an 
income sufficient to keep me. I was young, 
fairly clever, full of debating-society political 
enthusiasm, and I gladly accepted the offer as 
likely to open a path satisfactory to legitimate 
ambition. And it did. For the first few years, 
for so long, in fact, as I occupied a subordinate 
position, the footsteps of time trod pleasantly. 

" The work was easy, if uninteresting, con- 
sisting mainly of looking up a few facts and 
statistics, of writing polite letters of disapproval, 
or non-committal letters of approval, of soothing 
the wounded self-importance of an occasional 
constituent, and of applying to fractured engage- 
ments some plausible excuse. I saw the best of 
the best society. I was looked upon as ' a rising 
young man' and I knew it. In short I had a 
very good time. It was not until my superior 
officer obtained a nice little government post as 



WILLIE WHISPER 9 

the reward of long and meritorious secretarial 
service and I stepped into his cast-off secretarial 
shoes, that the actualities of public political life 
began to dispel the illusions with which I had 
embellished it. I was in the inner ring. In all 
things political I became the confidant of my 
chief ; and oh, the bitter awakening of it all ! 

" It seemed to me that all were for the party 
and none were for the state. Men who in private 
life were truthful and the soul of honour laboured 
under the conviction or illusion that politics was 
a game to which the ordinary rules of ethics did 
not apply. All means were deemed legitimate to 
serve a legitimate end, and what was the end ? 
To gull the people, to outmanoeuvre an opponent, 
to get the inside track of a friend, to avert party 
disaster, to inflict party defeat. It was party 
alone that the players thought of. Place and 
power were the stakes and no code of honour 
regulated the game. Oh, of course my chief, in 
common no doubt with others, acted on the 
assumption that the success of his party was 
essential to the well-being of the state. But did 
they really think so ? I would fain believe it, but 
who can say ? Has not the same belief or de- 
lusion possessed every great conqueror and scourge 



io CANADIAN NIGHTS 

of God who has deluged the fair earth with blood ? 
What were considered the most useful qualities 
in a public man ? Statesmanship, sound judg- 
ment, intuitive insight ? Not at all. Mob oratory ; 
the dramatic instinct, the power so to identify 
self momentarily with an assumed part as to move 
great audiences. Oh well, I need not go into all 
that. Public political life seemed to me at any 
rate to be compounded of personal ambition, 
private jealousy, and profound contempt for all 
the great principles for which the players in a 
disreputable game professed to be willing, nay 
anxious, to sacrifice their lives. I am not laying 
down the law, mind you. I may be all wrong, I 
admit. I am only telling you how the insight 
affected me. I found myself, according to my 
instincts, playing a subordinate part in a sordid 
comedy not unlikely to turn into a tragedy for the 
poor stupid ignorant people herded like bleating 
sheep into the party folds of the principal actors 
on the stage. I felt degraded. I am not a re- 
ligious man, certainly not in the dogmatic sense, 
but I even then believed in a great first cause, 
in the persistence of some core of me derived 
from that Supreme Being, and in my responsi- 
bility ; and I began to wonder whether anything 



WILLIE WHISPER n 

can profit a man if he lose his own soul. I felt as 
if the life I was leading left, as it flowed through 
me, some accretion binding and choking the best 
in me. The thought sickened me. How far it 
was all a question of nerves I didn't know. I 
consulted an old friend of mine, a very eminent 
medical man, and something of a psychologist 
also. Of course he said nerves, brain fag, over- 
work, and recommended a complete change ; but 
he added, ' Congenial work is never too hard. It 
is the work that jars that irritates the nerves. 
Perhaps your work cuts against the grain. If it 
does, give it up, for that is the only cure.' 

" Well, I took his advice partially by utilising my 
first long vacation in a trip — a solitary trip into the 
wilds. That was my undoing from a utilitarian 
point of view. I cannot tell you — well, I suppose 
it is scarcely necessary, for you must understand 
something about it yourself — anyhow I cannot 
describe the cleansing, healing influence of the 
deep woods upon perplexed spirit and harassed 
nerves. Great flakes of all the conventionalities 
and hypocrisies of the world seemed to be shed off 
me. Something seemed to whisper, ' What is 
your civilisation after all ? Masses of men strug- 
gling to survive, striving amid degrading surround- 



12 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

ings to force or crawl their way out of the general 
mass and welter of humanity. What is the life of 
your own class in the great city in which your lot 
is cast ? The same conflict, only under politer 
forms. The same struggle to get the better of 
others. The weariness and the vain endeavour 
to find in artificial gaiety a little forgetfulness in 
each fretful day. What do you find here ? A 
struggle also — the incomprehensible immutable law 
of all being that only by travail can life ascend ; 
but under what different conditions ! An honest 
fight, an open fight, and under surroundings clean 
and sweet ; and with it great contentment and 
peace of mind. Surely this is the natural and 
proper life of man.' " 

Willie Whisper paused to refill and light his 
pipe. 

" And so," I broke in, " you made the great 
renunciation, left it all and followed the call of 
the wild ? " 

" No, no, not by any means. I fought that 
which I now believe to be my better self hard. 
I went back to it all, to the intense interest and 
excitement of politics, to all the pleasures that 
London can offer to a young and fortune-favoured 
man. But you are right. The call of the wild 



WILLIE WHISPER 13 

proved too strong at last. I wearied of the 
pleasures. The sham patriotism and real selfish- 
ness of politicians disgusted me. Everything was 
so mercenary, even art and literature saturated 
with it and degraded. I think had I found some 
outlet in great commercial undertakings, engineer- 
ing exploits, or trading adventure, I might have 
stood it out ; but no, my lines were cast in 
politics ; politics sickened me, and at long last I 
cut clean adrift and sought the simple life. The 
simple life ! Yes, fools play at it at home. Eat 
nuts and get indigestion. Walk barefoot and 
catch colds. No, my dear sir, that is of no kind 
of use. If you cannot lead the life into which 
according to the catechism God has called you — 
if to you the simple life becomes an absolute 
necessity, a craving that cannot be denied, you 
must seek it where only it can be found. Don't 
play with nature. Give yourself wholly up to 
nature and nature will give herself wholly up to 
you, and you will find peace. 

" But don't suppose that peace and contentment 
came to me all at once. I suffered from qualms of 
conscience — thought that perhaps duty to others 
made it necessary for me to struggle on in my 
natural sphere, however disastrous the consequences 



H CANADIAN NIGHTS 

might be to myself. I had lapses towards civilisa- 
tion. The lights of London lured me. But one 
day something happened, I know not what, that 
drove all thought of the great world of busy 
cities for ever from my mind." 

" What happened ? " I cried, for Willie paused 
and seemed to fall into a reverie. 

" What happened ? " he resumed, rousing 
himself. " I don't know, but something happened 
that in a flash changed my whole conception of 
life, of the world, of the universe, of the past, the 
present, and the future. I cannot understand it 
myself ; so how can I hope to make you under- 
stand ? But I will try. 

" I am not, as most people suppose, an absolute 
wild man of the woods. I have a local habitation 
and a name. Do you know the country about 
Great Green Lake ? Yes, well, when I first came 
out I bought a few acres of land near by where 
the Manchester river runs out, cleared a patch and 
built me a house, well, perhaps a shanty is a more 
suitable term than house. There I keep a few 
books — classics, and the stores I need, and there 
I find an occasional letter from the outside world. 
There I generally spend the few unpleasant weeks 
of the early spring and late fall, and in a sense it is 



WILLIE WHISPER 15 

my home ; but, thank God, in this favoured 
corner of the world man wants but little shelter, 
and for nine months out of the twelve the woods 
are my real home and the sky my roof. Well, I 
was sitting outside the house one evening watching, 
in a perfectly normal state of mind and body, the 
blessed sun go down, when suddenly a most 
appalling sensation engulfed me. The house, the 
lake, the forest, the firmament, and — oh, the horror 
of it ! I myself — became utter nothingness. It 
was indescribably awful. But instantaneously 
that nothingness became every thingness. In a 
flash I saw myself, all past, present, and future, 
all created or to be created things as one point 
without dimensions, position in time or space, or 
anything. In a flash it came. In a flash it was 
gone, and I was there a solitary man, brooding in 
the dusk, my back against a tree. It passed abso- 
lutely, but it left an indelible impression impos- 
sible to convey in words. Language is based on 
phenomena and conceptions of time, space, and 
dimensions, and language cannot deal with some- 
thing outside of limitations. I can only describe 
the impression as one of completion, of perfec- 
tion, of flawless oneness. I knew myself to be 
an imperishable atom in one great whole and 



16 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

akin to everything external to me that I could 
sense. 

" Did something snap in my brain ? I don't 
know. People say I am crazy, ' crazy as a loon,' 
as your Indian said. Well, maybe I am, but I am 
sane enough to know it. The Indians think that 
I and the beasts and birds talk together and 
understand each other ; and that I hold whispered 
conversations with the trees and little herbs and 
flowers of the field, and call me therefore Willie 
Whisper. That is, of course, all nonsense ; but 
it is true that the momentary sense of oneness 
exposed some cord of sensitiveness that vibrates 
to all the life about me. It developed some sort 
of community of interest — shall I say of intelli- 
gence ? — between me and other living things. 
Some sense other than the ordinary physical 
senses came into embryonic being and, in some 
way that I do not in the least understand, I do 
become conscious of facts and happenings through 
some medium unconnected with the ordinary 
means whereby the self becomes aware of pheno- 
mena external to it. I cannot control it. The 
relative importance of events appears to have no 
bearing upon it. For instance, I told you that 



WILLIE WHISPER 17 

men are coming here and so they surely are, for 
when these perceptions come to me they are 
never wrong, but it is improbable that the advent 
of these strangers has any bearing upon the 
course of your life or of mine, and why it should 
have been perceived by me I cannot say. 

" Well now," said Willie, getting up and stretch- 
ing himself, " I have talked enough and more than 
enough about myself. I have talked the sun 
down below the tops of those pines, and I only 
hope I have not bored you nearly to tears. Why 
I have thus discoursed about my most uninteresting 
life and experiences goodness only knows, but it 
has at least eaten up some hours of a necessarily 
uneventful day. Come, it is getting chilly. Let 
us in to cook our supper and then, to while away 
the time till sweet sleep sets us free to wander, 
we must talk of some of our experiences in the 
wilds." So we strolled back to camp, carried in 
fuel for the night, cooked our supper of trout, 
frizzling in fat pork, made up a bright fire of 
sweet-smelling birch, and sat down to smoke 
and yarn. 

" Well, Willie," said I " you have done me a 
good turn, and a day that would have been weary 



1 8 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

has passed in most interesting talk. One good 
turn deserves another, but with all the will in the 
world I don't know how I can repay you. I am 
fresh from affairs and men, but the great world 
and the ways of it have but little changed since 
you left it not so very many years ago, and neither 
current politics nor recent society doings, scandal- 
ous or otherwise, would interest you. Instead of 
that you shall tell me something of your own life 
in the woods and on the plains and mountains. 
I'm only an amateur of the prairies and the 
Rockies, and I dare say you have forgotten twice 
as much as I shall ever know." 

" There you're wrong," said Willie ; "I don't 
think, leading this kind of life, that one ever 
forgets what happens in it. You see it's all there 
is, and to a solitary man memory takes the place 
of a library and of society. If I'm sitting over 
the fire and want diversion all I have to do is to 
run over in remembrance some of my early ex- 
periences ; the more you think, the more you 
remember. It's like taking out a book that 
you've once read and half forgotten, and finding 
it full of bright pictures." 

" Well, we have no books here," I answered. 



WILLIE WHISPER 19 

" We have the evening to while away ; dip into 
your memory library and let us have yarns or 
pictures — I don't mind which. A man who lives 
alone with nature ought to have a lot to tell." 

" No," said Willie, looking into the fire, " I can't 
talk about the life I lead now. A solitary life leaves 
no record. It is enough for me to live it — I don't 
want to talk it. What I amuse myself by recalling 
— and I don't mind telling all I remember about 
that — is my experience as an ordinary hunter. 
As I told you, I wasn't always a solitary ; and before 
I abandoned civilisation I went one or two trips 
with a friend ; we took servants and gillies, and 
did it in comfort." He smiled whimsically. " Go 
back to that sort of thing I couldn't — but it's 
amusing to remember." 

And it was thus that we came to talk about 
Colorado and about life in the woods and on the 
plains. What was spoken by the fire on those 
nights has long gone into the silence that engulfs 
all human speech ; but the substance of it as I 
afterwards wrote it, and the memory of those far- 
off days, are preserved in the following pages. 



A COLORADO SKETCH 

IT would appear that the American continent 
was originally of considerably larger dimensions 
than it is at present. It was probably found to 
be altogether too large for comfort or convenience, 
and it was reduced by the simple process of 
pressing or squeezing it together from the sides — 
an operation which caused it to crumple up to- 
wards the centre, and produced that great, elevated, 
tumbled, and tossed region generally and vaguely 
known as the Rocky Mountains. If this simple 
theory of the formation of a continent sounds 
somewhat infantile, you must remember that I 
am not a scientific man, and that it is not more 
unscientific than many other theories of creation. 
There is no such thing as a chain of Rocky Moun- 
tains. Under that name are included various 
ranges and belts of mountains and hills, which 
embrace within their far-stretching arms fertile 
valleys, arid deserts, sunny hill-slopes clothed with 
valuable timber, parks full of pastoral beauty 
basking beneath a sun that warms them into semi- 



A COLORADO SKETCH 21 

tropical life, but which never melts the virgin snow 
whitening the hoary heads of the mountains that 
for ever look down upon those smiling scenes. 
Rich and extensive plains, tracts of inhabitable 
land almost large enough to be the cradle and 
home of nations, are included in the Rocky Moun- 
tains. Among all the states and territories that 
lie wholly or partially within the borders of this 
vast, upheaved region, there is none, so far as I 
am aware, more favoured by nature, and, at the 
same time, more accessible to man, than Colorado. 
It is easily reached from all the great cities of the 
Eastern States ; its scenery is varied, beautiful, 
grand, and even magnificent. Crystal streams of 
pure, wholesome water rush down the hill-sides, 
play at hide-and-seek in the woods, and wander 
deviously through the parks. The climate is 
health-giving — unsurpassed, as I believe, anywhere 
— giving to the jaded spirit, the unstrung nerves, 
and weakened body a stimulant, a tone, and a 
vigour that can only be appreciated by those who 
have had the good fortune to travel or reside in 
that region. 

The parks of Colorado constitute its special 
feature : there is nothing elsewhere on the American 
continent resembling them in natural character- 



22 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

istics. They are not valleys ; they are too flat 
and too extensive for that. They cannot be 
called plains, for they are not flat enough ; and, 
besides, plains are generally bare and destitute of 
trees, while the parks are rich in timber, with 
beautifully undulating surfaces, broken up by 
hills, spurs from the parent range, and isolated 
mountains. The term " Park " is usually applied 
to ground more or less artificially made; and 
these places are very properly called parks, for they 
look, if it be not rank heresy to liken nature to 
art, as if ground naturally picturesque had been 
carefully laid out and planted with most consum- 
mate skill and taste. Some of them are of great 
size, such as the North, Middle, South, and St. 
Louis Parks ; others— and it is with them I am 
best acquainted — are comparatively small. 

There are many things to arouse deep interest 
in that favoured region. Where you find lofty 
mountains, foot-hills, plain, valley, forest, and 
quick-flowing stream, in a southern latitude, you 
have in combination all that can gratify the 
scientific student, as well as all that can content 
the eye of man, in the way of scenery. The philo- 
sopher who devotes himself to the study of atmos- 
pheric conditions could nowhere find a more 



A COLORADO SKETCH 23 

fitting field for observation. The mountain ranges 
and extensive level spaces comprised within their 
limits are important factors in the economy of 
nature. The great masses of heat-radiating rock 
temper the winds that blow over them, and shed 
genial warmth far and wide. The whole region 
is one vast brewery of storms. Chemical changes 
are constantly going on. Electricity is working 
with exceptional vigour, riving the solid rocks, 
devastating trees, and putting forth most vividly 
the awful and mysterious manifestations of its 
strength. Hot currents and cold currents fight 
aerial battles round those patient peaks, that stand 
unmoved amidst the roar and racket of elemental 
strife. Frequent lightnings blaze or flicker round 
the mountain heads ; continuous thunder crashes 
on their slopes, and rolls and rumbles in the 
caverns and valleys that seam their sides. Tem- 
pests shriek round the crags, and moan dismally 
as they toss the gnarled and matted branches of 
the stunted trees that force their adventurous 
way up the broad shoulders of the range. Snow 
in winter, rain and hail in summer, pour upon the 
higher summits ; while, beneath, the land is 
glowing under a cloudless sky. Contending air- 
currents of different density discharge their 



24 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

moisture on the hills. The sun draws up fresh 
moisture from the valleys, like drawing water 
from a well. All nature seems seething in that 
region of heat and cold, sunshine and tempest, 
dryness and damp, constantly fabricating those 
great cloud masses that, breaking away from their 
cradle, carry rain and fertility over thousands and 
thousands of miles. Sometimes they over-exert 
themselves, carry their good intentions too far, 
exceed their proper limits, and, transgressing the 
boundaries of their native land, cross the wide 
Atlantic and pour their accumulated store of rain 
upon those already sodden little islands, Great 
Britain and Ireland. 

The parks and valleys which spread out beneath 
the mountains, or nestle cosily amid the warm 
folds of the forest mantles which clothe them, 
play also an important part. They act as reser- 
voirs ; they catch the little, tiny, ice-cold rills 
that trickle out from under the ever-melting but 
never-melted snow, gather them together, hold 
them till they grow strong enough to carve their 
way through the granite flanks that hem them in, 
and launch them out into the world, forming 
rivulets bright and sparkling, flecked with light 
and shade, over which the quivering aspen bends 



A COLORADO SKETCH 25 

from banks sweet and bright with flowers ; growing 
into brooks down which lumber may be rafted ; 
swelling into streams which carry irrigation and 
fertility to arid wastes ; becoming rivers upon 
which steamboats ply and ships ride at anchor. 

Physical geography is a fascinating science ; and 
to the student of it nothing can be more interesting 
than to stand upon some commanding mountain 
top, and, with a large, comprehensive view, study 
the configuration of the country that gives birth 
to those rivers that in their course determine the 
natural geographical features of a continent, and 
consequently shape the destiny of a race. From 
many a peak in Colorado the geographer can trace 
the devious line of the " water- shed," the " divide " 
that separates the rivers and sends them out, 
each on its appointed course ; and can see, shining 
like silver threads, the rivulets from which they 
spring. Looking westward, and to the north and 
south, he can see the fountains of both Plattes, of 
the Rio Grande — the Grand river — the Arkansas, 
the Blue, the White, and the Bear rivers, and 
other streams which unite to form that most 
extraordinary of all rivers on the American conti- 
nent — the Colorado. Turning to the east, a very 
different scene greets his eye ; there, spread out 



26 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

like an ocean beneath him, lies the Prairie, that 
great deposit of gravel, sand, and unstratified 
clays, the debris of the mountain range on which 
he stands. 

Where could the geologist find a region more 
suitable for the exercise of his peculiar branch of 
science than one which combines the vast deposit 
of the prairies with mountain masses obtruded 
from the bowels of the earth, and deep canons 
exposing broad sections of the earth's crust to his 
view ? And where is the mineralogist more likely 
to be rewarded for his pains ? As to the botanist, 
I would almost warn him from visiting those 
scenes, lest he should never be able to tear him- 
self away ; for the variety of the flora is infinite, 
ranging from Alpine specimens blooming amid 
everlasting snows, to flowers of a very different 
character, growing in rich luxuriance in deep 
valleys under a subtropical sun. 

I have not included hunting among the sciences, 
but in reality I might have done so. It is a very 
exact science, and one in which excellence is 
rarely obtained. Many men never become, never 
can become, good hunters. They are not endowed 
with the necessary faculties ; and those who are 
gifted with them require years of study and hard 



A COLORADO SKETCH 27 

work before they can be entitled to call themselves 
masters of the art. I hope no one labours under 
the delusion that hunting is a mere barbarous, 
bloodthirsty sport. Every good hunter will agree 
with me that it is not the killing of the animal 
that gives pleasure. The charm lies in over- 
coming difficulties — in matching your natural in- 
telligence and acquired knowledge and skill against 
the instinct, cunning, intellect, and reason of the 
animal you are endeavouring to outwit. The 
reward of the hunter is the same as that of the 
student of languages, of the archaeologist, of the 
geologist — in fact, of all scientific people. His 
triumph is the triumph of unravelling a mystery, 
tracing and discovering a hidden fact, grappling 
with and overcoming a difficulty. It is the fact of 
overcoming, not the act of killing, that brightens 
the hunter's eye and renders his occupation so 
charming. The hunter's craft gives health, its 
surroundings are beautiful, it calls forth some of 
the best qualities of man, it is full of fascination, 
and it is no wonder that primitive races find it 
difficult to emerge from the hunting condition. 
It is most annoying that everything that is pleasant 
is all wrong. We all know that peoples, in their 
progress towards civilisation, advance from the 



28 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

hunting to the pastoral state, from the pastoral 
to the agricultural, and from thence to a condition 
of existence in which the manufacturing instincts 
of man are fully developed. This is the sequence 
— hunting, cattle-tending, sheep-herding, fesh air, 
good water, lovely scenery, wholesome excitement, 
healthy lives, and — barbarism ; agriculture, manu- 
factures, great cities, hideous country, poisoned 
water, impure air, dirt, disease, and — civilisation. 
It is difficult sometimes to know exactly what to 
say when preaching civilisation to the savage. It 
is certain that, so far as the masses of the people 
are concerned, the highest aim of civilisation is 
to secure to a large number the same blessings that 
a small number obtain, freely and without trouble, 
in an uncivilised state. 

It was sport — or, as it would be called in the 
States, hunting — that led me first to visit Estes 
Park. Some friends and I had visited Denver 
at Christmas to pay our proper devotions to the 
good things of this earth at that festive season, 
and, hearing rumours of much game at Estes 
Park, we determined to go there. We spent a 
day or two laying in supplies, purchasing many of 
the necessaries and a few of the luxuries of life, 
and wound up our sojourn in Denver with a very 



A COLORADO SKETCH 29 

pleasant dinner at an excellent restaurant, not 
inaptly styled the " Delmonico " of the West. 
During dinner one of those sudden and violent 
storms peculiar to that region came on. When we 
sat down the stars were shining clear and hard 
with the brilliancy that is so beautiful in those 
high altitudes on a cold dry mid-winter night, and 
not a breath of wind disturbed the stillness of the 
air ; but, before we had half satisfied the appetites 
engendered by the keen frosty atmosphere, the 
stars were all shrouded in cloud, the gale was 
howling through the streets, and snow was whirl- 
ing in the air, piling up in drifts wherever it found 
a lodgment, and sifting in fine powder through 
every chink and cranny in the door. It did not 
last long. Before morning the sky was clear, 
cloudless, steely, star-bespangled as before, and 
when we left by an early train for Longmont 
Station the sun was shining undimmed upon 
fields of freshly-fallen snow. 

By way of enlivening the journey we were 
treated by thoughtful nature to a magnificent 
spectacle — a beautiful exhibition of that pheno- 
menon known, I believe, as a parhelion. The sun 
was only a few degrees above the horizon. The 
sky was very clear and intensely blue overhead, 



30 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

but slightly clouded with a thin gauzy film round 
the horizon, and, on looking up, one could see 
that the air was full of minute crystals of ice. 
It was tolerably cold — probably about fifteen or 
twenty degrees below zero — and perfectly calm. 
All round the horizon ran a belt of pure bright 
white light, passing through the sun. This belt 
was not exactly level, but dipped a little to the 
east and west, and rose slightly to the north and 
south. The sun was surrounded by a halo showing 
rainbow colours on the inside, which faded into 
white light on the outside edge. A bright per- 
pendicular ray of white light cut through the sun, 
forming, with the belt that ran round the horizon, 
a perfect cross. There was a similar cross in the 
west, and another in the north, but none in the 
south at first, but after an hour or so a fourth 
cross formed in that quarter also. Right overhead 
was a partially formed horizontal rainbow, the 
colours of which were very bright. Sometimes 
this rainbow would develop into an almost perfect 
circle ; then again it would diminish till there 
remained only a small segment of the circle. The 
points where the solar halo cut the belt which 
encircled the horizon were intensely brilliant — 
almost as bright as the sun — and rays of white 



A COLORADO SKETCH 31 

light struck down from them. As the sun rose 
the halo surrounding it became very dazzling, and 
assumed the colours of the rainbow, and a second 
rainbow- tinted circle formed outside it. The 
rainbow in the zenith increased at the same time 
in brilliancy, and a second circle formed outside that 
also. The whole phenomenon was very beautiful ; 
it continued some hours, gradually fading away, 
and finally disappeared about three in the afternoon. 
The next morning we loaded up a wagon with 
stores and started on our toilsome expedition to 
the Park. It is very easy work — it is not work at 
all, in fact — to get into the Park nowadays. It 
was a very different affair at that time. There 
are two good stage-roads now ; there was no road 
at all then — only a rough track going straight up 
hill and down dale, and over rocks and through 
trees and along nearly perpendicular slopes, with 
the glorious determination to go straight forward 
of an old Roman road, but without any of the 
engineering skill and labour expended upon the 
latter. It was a hard road to travel, covered with 
snow and slippery with ice ; but by dint of literally 
putting our shoulders to the wheel uphill, by 
chaining the wheels downhill, and by holding up 
the wagon by ropes and main strength on pre- 



32 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

cipitous hill-sides, we got to our destination very- 
late at night with only one serious accident — the 
fracture of a bottle containing medical comforts. 

The road from Longmont to the Park traverses 
the level plain for about fifteen miles, and then 
enters a canon flanked on either side by strange- 
shaped masses of bright red sandstone, outcropping 
from the surface, and in some places tilted nearly 
on end. It then follows along the bank of the 
St. Vrain River — teeming with trout — crosses 
that stream, and works its way with many curves 
and twists up through the foot-hills, along grassy 
slopes, through pine forests, past fantastic masses 
of rock, crosses a little creek hiding deep among 
aspens and poplars, and, after plunging down two 
violent descents and mounting up again, enters 
a long valley rejoicing in the euphonious title of 
" Muggins's Gulch." I do not know who Muggins 
was — no doubt an honest citizen ; but he should 
have changed his name before bestowing it upon 
such a pretty spot. You ascend this valley at an 
easy gradient till you reach the summit, when 
suddenly a lovely view bursts upon you, and the 
Park lies spread out at your feet. On the left the 
hill-side rises steeply, crowned with a buttress 
of frowning rock. On the right a mountain of 



A COLORADO SKETCH 33 

almost solid rock stands naked and savage. In 
front, beyond the Park, the main range of moun- 
tains rears itself, topped with snow, rent in great 
chasms, pierced by the gloomy heavily-timbered 
depths of black canon. On the extreme left and 
in the distance Long's Peak towers above its 
fellows ; and beneath you, in strange contrast with 
the barren foot-hills through which you have 
passed, and the savage stern grandeur of the 
range, lies the Park — undulating, grass-covered, 
dotted with trees, peaceful and quiet, with a 
silver thread of water curving and twining through 
its midst. 

A log-house is comfortable enough at any time ; 
and on that particular night it appeared eminently 
so to us, as, cold and wearied, we passed the 
hospitable threshold. What a supper we devoured, 
and what logs we heaped upon the fire, till we 
made the flames leap and roar on the open hearth ! 
and then lay down on mattresses on the floor, and 
listened to the howling of the wind, till the noise 
of the tempest, confusedly mingling with our 
dreams, was finally hushed in deep, unbroken 
sleep. 

The winter weather in Northern Colorado is 
most enjoyable. At the high altitude of Estes 



34 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

Park, between 7000 and 8000 feet above sea-level, 
it consists of alternate short storms and long spells 
of fine weather. You will have several days of 
bright clear weather, hard frost, the thermometer 
very low, but the sun so powerful that you can 
lie down and go fast asleep, as I have frequently 
done, on a warm, sunny, and sheltered bank in the 
very depth of winter. Then the clouds begin to 
accumulate, growing denser and denser, till they 
break and descend in a snowstorm of some hours' 
duration. The cattle, which before dotted all the 
open ground, disappear as if by magic, seeking and 
finding shelter in little hidden gulches and un- 
noticed valleys, and the land looks utterly desolate. 
The snowstorm is invariably succeeded by a violent 
tempest of wind, which speedily clears the ground 
of snow, heaping it up in drifts, and blowing 
the greater part of it into the air in such a thin 
powdery condition that it is taken up by the 
atmosphere and disappears completely. So dry is 
the air and so warm the winter's sun that snow 
evaporates without leaving any moisture behind 
it. Another period of clear, still, cold weather 
then follows after the gale. 

The violence of these tempests is very great. 
Many a night have I lain awake listening to the 



A COLORADO SKETCH 35 

screams and clamour of the gale ; now rising 
suddenly to a shriek as a fresh gust of wind came 
tearing down the level plain, snatching up pebbles 
and stones, sending them hopping over the ground, 
and hurling them against the log-house ; then 
sinking to a long melancholy moan ; whistling 
shrilly around the walls, hoarsely howling in the 
wide chimney ; while, under all, the low con- 
tinuous roar of the tempest raging in the distant 
forest sounded like a mighty bass note in the 
savage music of the storm. 

That is the time to appreciate the comfort of a 
warm weather-proof house, to snuggle up in your 
blanket and idly watch the merry sparks fly up 
the chimney, and the warm ruddy flicker of the 
fire casting shadows on the rough brown pine- 
logs; gazing and blinking, listening and thinking, 
one's thoughts perhaps wandering very far away, 
and getting less and less coherent. The storm 
chimes in with your fancies, mingles with your 
dreams, till with a start you open your eyes, and 
find to your astonishment the level rays of the 
rising sun lighting up a scene as calm and peaceful 
as if the tempest had never been. 

In spring and summer the scene and climate are 
very different. Ice and snow and withered grass 



36 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

have passed away, and everything is basking and 
glowing under a blazing sun, hot but always 
tempered with a cool breeze. Cattle wander about 
the plain — or try to wander, for they are so fat 
they can scarcely move. Water-fowl frequent the 
lakes. The whole earth is green, and the margins 
of the streams are luxuriant with a profuse growth 
of wild flowers and rich herbage. The air is 
scented with the sweet-smelling sap of the pines, 
whose branches welcome many feathered visitors 
from southern climes ; an occasional humming- 
bird whirrs among the shrubs, trout leap in the 
creeks, insects buzz in the air ; all nature is active 
and exuberant with life. 

I and a Scotch gillie, who had accompanied me 
from home, took up our abode in a little log- 
shanty close to the ranch-house, and made our- 
selves very cosy. There was not much elegance 
or luxury in our domicile, but plenty of comfort. 
Two rough rooms — a huge fireplace in one of 
them — two beds, and no other furniture of any 
kind whatever, completed our establishment. 
But what on earth did we want with furniture ? 
We were up before daylight, out hunting or fishing 
all day, had our food at the ranch, sat on the 
ground and smoked our pipes, and went to bed 



A COLORADO SKETCH 37 

early. One's rest is a good deal broken in winter 
time, and it is necessary to go to bed early in order 
to get enough sleep, because in very cold weather 
it is highly advisable to keep a fire burning all 
night ; and, as yet, hunters have not evolved 
the faculty of putting on logs in their sleep. It 
would be most useful if they could do so ; and, 
according to the law of evolution, some of them 
by this time ought to have done it. However, 
I was not much troubled ; for Sandie, who slept 
by the fire, was very wakeful. I would generally 
awake about two or three in the morning to find 
the logs blazing and crackling merrily, and Sandie 
sitting in the ingle smoking his pipe, plunged in 
deep thought. 

" Well, Sandie," I would say, " what kind of a 
night is it, and what are you thinking of ? " 

" Oh, well, it's a fine night, just a wee bit cheely 
outside (thermometer about 25 below zero) ; 
and I'm thinking we did not make that stalk after 
the big stag just right yesterday ; and I'm thinking 
where we'll go to-day to find him." Then we 
would smoke a little — haver a little, as Sandie 
would call it — and discuss the vexed question of 
how we made the mistake with the big stag ; 
and having come to a satisfactory conclusion, and 



38 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

agreed that the stag had the biggest antlers that 
ever were seen — which is always the case with the 
deer you don't get — we would put out our pipes, 
and sleep till daylight warned us to set about our 
appointed task, which was to find a deer somehow, 
for the larder wanted replenishing. 

In those days you had not far to seek for game, 
and you could scarcely go wrong in any direction 
at any season of the year. In winter and spring 
the Park still swarms with game ; but it is neces- 
sary in summer to know where to look for it, to 
understand its manners and customs, to go further 
and to work harder than formerly, for Estes Park 
is civilised. In summer time beautiful but danger- 
ous creatures roam the Park. The tracks of tiny 
little shoes are more frequent than the less in- 
teresting, but harmless, footprints of mountain 
sheep. You are more likely to catch a glimpse of 
the flicker of the hem of a white petticoat in the 
distance than of the glancing form of a deer. 
The marks of carriage wheels are more plentiful 
than elk signs, and you are not now so likely to be 
scared by the human-like track of a gigantic bear 
as by the appalling impress of a number eleven 
boot. That is as it should be. There is plenty of 
room elsewhere for wild beasts, and nature's 



A COLORADO SKETCH 39 

beauties should be enjoyed by man. I well re- 
member the commencement of civilisation. I 
was sitting on the stoop of the log-shanty one 
fine hot summer's evening, when to me appeared 
the strange apparition of an aged gentleman on a 
diminutive donkey. He was the first stranger I 
had ever seen in the Park. After surveying me in 
silence for some moments he observed, " Say, is 
this a pretty good place to drink whisky in ? " 
I replied " Yes," naturally, for I have never heard 
of a spot that was not favourable for the consump- 
tion of whisky, the State of Maine not excepted. 
" Well, have you any to sell ? " he continued. 
"No," I answered, "got none." After gazing at 
me in melancholy silence for some moments, 
evidently puzzled at the idea of a man and a house 
but no whisky, he went slowly and sadly on his 
way, and I saw him no more. 

On the morning that Sandie and I went out, 
it was not necessary to go far from the house. 
We had not ridden long before we came to likely 
looking country, got off, unsaddled and tethered 
our horses, and started on foot, carefully scanning 
the ground for fresh sign. Soon we came upon it — 
quite recently formed tracks of three or four deer. 
Then we had to decide upon the plan of opera- 



40 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

tions in a long and whispered conversation ; and 
finally, having settled where the deer were likely 
to be, and how to get at them, we made a long 
circuit, so as to be down wind of the game, and 
went to work. The ground to which I am re- 
ferring is very rough. It slopes precipitously 
towards the river. Huge masses of rock lie 
littered about on a surface pierced by many per- 
pendicular jagged crags, hundreds of feet high, 
and long ridges and spurs strike downward from 
the sheer scarp that crowns the can on of the river, 
forming beautiful little glades — sheltered, sunny, 
clothed with sweet grass — on which the deer love 
to feed. 

In such a country there was no chance of seeing 
game at any distance ; so we had to go very cau- 
tiously, examining every sign, crawling up to every 
little ridge, and inch by inch craning our heads over 
and peering into every bush and under every tree. 
In looking over a rise of ground it is advisable for 
the hunter to take off his head-covering unless he 
wears a very tight-fitting cap. I have often laughed 
to see great hunters (great in their own estimation) 
raising their heads most carefully, forgetting that a 
tall felt hat, some six inches above their eyes, had 
already been for some time in view of the deer. 



A COLORADO SKETCH 41 

Many hunters seem to think that the deer cannot see 
them till they see the deer. 

The sportsman cannot go too slowly, and it is 
better to hunt out one little gully thoroughly than 
to cover miles of ground in the day. If he walks 
rapidly he will scare heaps of deer, hear lots of crash- 
ing in the trees and scattering of stones, and per- 
haps see the whisk of a white tail, or the glance of a 
dark form, through the trees, but never get a shot 
for his pains. We pursued a different plan — took 
each little gulch separately, and carefully crept up 
it, searching every inch of ground, using redoubled 
caution towards the end where the bush is thickest, 
and especially scanning the north side ; for, strange 
to say, deer prefer lying on the north side of valleys 
in the snow, even during the coldest weather, to 
resting on the warm sunny grass on the southern 
slopes. Patiently we worked ; but our patience 
was not well rewarded, for not a sign of anything 
did we see till our entirely foodless stomachs and 
the nearly shadowless trees indicated that it was 
past noon. So we sat us down in a nice little 
sheltered nook, from whence we commanded a good 
view of the precipitous cliffs and gullies that led 
down to the tortuous and icebound creek, some 
thousands of feet below us, as well as of the face of 



42 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

the mountain that reared itself on the opposite 
side, and betook ourselves to food and reflection. 
It is very pleasant to lie comfortably stretched out 
with nothing to do but to gaze with idle pleasure and 
complete content upon grand and varied scenery. 
The eye, now plunging into the abyss of blue 
crossed at intervals by swiftly moving clouds, now 
lowered and resting on the earth, pauses for a 
minute on the dazzling snow-white summits, then 
travels down through dark green pine woods, 
wanders over little open glades or valleys grey with 
withered grass, glances at steep cliffs and great 
riven masses of rock which time and weather have 
detached and hurled down the mountain side, and 
falls at last upon the pale green belt of aspens that 
fringes the river, white with snow where spanned 
with ice, but black as ink where a rapid torrent has 
defied the frost. Nor is the eye wearied with its 
journey ; for mountain, valley, cliff, and glade are 
so mingled, and are so constantly changing with 
light and shade, that one could look for hours with- 
out a wish to move. The mind goes half asleep, 
and wonders lazily whether its body is really there 
in the heart of the Rocky Mountains leading a 
hunter's life, or whether it is not all a dream — a 
dream of schoolboy days which seemed at one time 



A COLORADO SKETCH 43 

so little likely to be realised, and yet which is 
at length fulfilled. 

It must not be supposed that, because we were 
half asleep and wholly dreaming, we were not also 
keeping a sharp look-out ; for in a man who is very 
much accustomed to take note of every unusual 
object, of every moving thing, and of the slightest 
sign of any living creature — more especially if he has 
roamed much on the prairies where hostile redskins 
lurk and creep — the faculty of observation is so con- 
stantly exercised that it becomes a habit uncon- 
sciously used, and he is all the time seeing sights, 
and hearing sounds, and smelling smells, and noting 
them down, and receiving all kinds of impressions 
from all external objects, without being the least 
aware of it himself. However, none of our senses 
were gratified by anything that betokened the 
presence of game, and, after resting a little while, 
we picked up our rifles and stole quietly on again. 
So we crept and hunted, and hunted and crept, and 
peered and whispered, and wondered we saw no- 
thing, till the pine trees were casting long shadows 
to the east, when suddenly Sandie, who was a pace or 
two in front of me, became rigid, changed into a man 
of stone, and then, almost imperceptibly, a hair's- 
breadth at a time, stooped his head and sank down. 



44 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

If you come suddenly in sight of game, you should 
remain perfectly motionless for a time, and sink out 
of sight gradually ; for if you drop down quickly, 
the movement will startle it. Deer seem to be 
short-sighted. They do not notice a man, even close 
by, unless he moves. I never saw a man so excited 
at the sight of game, and yet so quiet, as Sandie. 
It seemed as if he would fly to pieces ; he seized 
my arm with a grip like a vice, and whispered, " Oh, 
a great stag within easy shot from the big rock 
yonder ! He has not seen me." So, prone upon 
the earth, I crawled up to the rock, cocked the rifle, 
drew a long breath, raised myself into a sitting 
position, got a good sight on the deer, pulled, and 
had the satisfaction of seeing him tumbling head- 
long down the gulch, till he stopped stone-dead 
jammed between two trees. 

Leaving Sandie to prepare the stag for trans- 
portation, I started off as fast as I could, and 
brought one of the ponies down to the carcass. It 
was pretty bad going for a four-footed animal ; but 
Colorado horses, if used to the mountains, will go 
almost anywhere. The way they will climb up places, 
and slither down places, and pick their way through 
" wind-falls," is marvellous. They seem to be 
possessed of any number of feet, and to put them 



A COLORADO SKETCH 45 

down always exactly at the right moment in the 
right place. I do not suppose they like it, for they 
groan and grunt the while in a most piteous manner. 
My pony was sure-footed and willing, and, more- 
over, was used to pack game ; so we had little 
trouble with him, and before long had the deer 
firmly secured on the saddle and were well on our 
way home. It was well for us that we killed the deer 
in a comparatively accessible place, or we should 
not have got him in that night or the next day. It 
was almost dark when we topped the ridge, and 
could look down into the Park and see the range 
beyond, and there were plenty of signs there to show 
that a storm was at hand. Right overhead the stars 
were shining, but all the sky to the west was one 
huge wall of cloud. Black Canon, the canon of the 
river, and all the great rents in the range were filled 
with vapour, and all the mountains were wrapped 
in cloud. 

When we left the ranch that night after a good 
supper, a game of euchre, and sundry pipes, it was 
pitch-dark, and light flakes of snow were noiselessly 
floating down to the earth ; and, when we got 
up the next morning, behold ! there was not a 
thing to be seen. Mountains, ranch-house, and 
everything else were blotted out by a densely falling 



46 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

white, bewildering mass of snow. Towards noon 
it lightened up a little, and great grey shapes of 
mountains loomed out now and then a shade darker 
than the white wall that almost hid them ; but the 
weather was not fit for hunting, and, as there was 
nothing else to be done out of doors, we made a 
fete of it, as a French-Canadian would say, and de- 
voted ourselves to gun-cleaning and spinning yarns. 
When deep snow lies upon the higher grounds 
surrounding Estes Park, wapiti come down into 
the Park in considerable numbers. The wapiti is a 
splendid beast, the handsomest by far of all the deer 
tribe. He is called an elk in the States — why, I do 
not know ; for the European elk is identical with 
the American moose, and a moose and a wapiti are 
not the least alike. But I presume the wapiti is 
called by the Americans an elk for the same reason 
that they call thrushes robins, and grouse partridges. 
The reason, I dare say, is a good one, but I do not 
know what it is. The wapiti enjoys a range ex- 
tending from the Pacific seaboard to the Missis- 
sippi, and from the north-west territory in British 
possessions down to Texas, and he formerly was 
found all the way across the continent and in the 
Eastern States. He is exactly like the European 
red deer — only about twice as large — carries mag- 



A COLORADO SKETCH 47 

nificent antlers, and is altogether a glorious animal. 
Wapiti are very shy. They require quiet and large 
undisturbed pastures ; and they are hunted with 
a thoughtless brutality that must shortly lead to 
their extermination in civilised districts. They do 
not accustom themselves to civilisation as easily as 
do moose or antelope, but resent deeply the prox- 
imity of man — that is to say, of civilised man, for 
Indians do not interfere with them very much. 
Indians, as a rule, are not really fond of hunting ; 
they hunt for subsistence, not for pleasure, and, 
where buffalo are to be found, never trouble their 
heads about smaller game. Elk are plentiful in any 
Indian country that suits them ; in fact, as a rule, 
there is very little use in hunting wapiti in any 
country that is not exposed to Indian incursions, 
and the more dangerous the country, the better 
sport you are likely to have. But this is not an 
invariable rule. There are some places where 
wapiti may be found in quite sufficient numbers 
to repay a sportsman's labour, and where he need 
not incur the smallest risk to life or limb. I imagine 
there are more wapiti to be found in Montana and 
the adjacent territories than in any other part of 
the United States. Wapiti are to be met with in 
forests of timber, among the mountains, and on the 



48 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

treeless prairie. They are, I think, most numerous 
on the plains, but the finest specimens are found in 
timbered districts. One might suppose that branch- 
ing antlers would cause inconvenience to an animal 
running through the tangle of a primeval forest ; 
but the contrary appears to be the case, for in all 
countries the woodland deer carry far finer heads 
than the stags of the same species that range in 
open country. The size of the antlers depends 
entirely on the food which the animal can procure. 
Where he is well fed, they will be well developed ; 
where food is scarce, they will be small. In a 
timbered country there is more shelter than on the 
plains, the grass is not so deeply covered with snow 
in winter, and consequently food is more plentiful 
at that time of year, and the animal thrives better. 
You always find heavier deer in woodland than in 
an open country. Early in the fall the stags gather 
large herds of hinds about them ; about the end of 
October they separate, and the big stags wander off 
alone for a while, and then later on join in with the 
big bands of hinds and small stags. During the 
winter they run in great numbers — it is not un- 
usual to find herds of two or three hundred to- 
gether, and I have seen, I believe, as many as a 
thousand different wapiti within a week. A large 



A COLORADO SKETCH 49 

herd of these grand animals is a magnificent sight, 
and one not soon to be forgotten. They are to be 
killed either by stalking them on foot, or partially 
on foot and partially on horseback, or by running 
them on horseback as you would run buffalo. 

Willie broke off here, for Noel the Indian was 
fast asleep. It is astonishing how these men can 
sleep when they have nothing else to do, and how 
well they can on necessity do without sleep ; and 
Willie Whisper also began to look as if bedtime 
was near at hand. The fire was getting low. " I 
like that sketch," I said, " I like the description of 
scenery. It is grand, but not peaceful and com- 
forting like your woods. And I like the natural 
history — not too much slaughtering of my fellow- 
creatures, and no killing just for killing's sake in the 
story either. Man must eat to live and must kill 
to eat, and we brethren of the woods seek our meat 
from God. But I wish it were otherwise." 

" So do I," he answered drowsily, " and I think 
I could prove it, but you are sleepy and so am I, 
and I have talked enough for one night," and so 
wrapping our blankets round us we lay down to rest. 

Provisions were getting low. I had not looked 
for a long delay in reaching my hunting camp, and 



So CANADIAN NIGHTS 

Willie Whisper was but scantily supplied. Of tea 
and sugar we had enough, but we were short of 
flour, and the little bit of fat pork was getting 
lamentably small. So the next day was spent in 
foraging. The proceeds of the chase did not 
amount to much — one porcupine, plenty of trout, 
and some cranberries — but it sufficed for present 
needs, and after supper Willie said : 

" I agree with all you said last night about killing 
for the sake of killing. Though the hunting in- 
stinct is very strong in me I have never killed to 
waste, and I don't think I shall offend you if I give 
you another hunting yarn. I alluded last night to 
wapiti. I have hunted them in every way, and in 
every place in the woods, among the mountains, on 
the plains, stalked them on foot, stalked them on 
horseback, and run them. Shall I tell you about 
wapiti-running on the plains ? " 

" Good," said I, " fire away." 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 

The first time I ever saw the head of a wapiti 
(Cervus canadensis) was at Chicago. I happened 
to be talking one day with General Sheridan, when 
a magnificent specimen arrived from one of the 
frontier forts as a present from the officer in com- 
mand there. I had heard of these animals, but had 
looked upon them as mythological beasts. I had 
been so much disappointed in America in my search 
for large game, had heard so many rumours which 
turned out to be without the smallest foundation 
in fact, and had listened to so many stories of 
abundance of game which proved to be entirely 
illusory — the animals existing only in the vivid 
imagination of the story-tellers — that I had begun 
seriously to doubt whether any wapiti existed on 
the continent. The sight, however, of the pair of 
horns reassured me considerably, for obviously 
where one wapiti stag was to be found there was 
a reasonable chance of killing others, and my en- 
thusiasm rising to fever heat on the closer inspection 
of the antlers, nothing would satisfy me but I must 

5» 



52 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

be off at once to the fort. Accordingly I and my 
companion boarded a Western-bound train on the 

comfortable assurance that General , a man 

of his word, had promised to do all he could to 
help me. 

It would be useless to enter into any descrip- 
tion of the journey. The comfort of the Pullman 
cars, the discomfort of the heat and dust, the occa- 
sional bands of buffalo, the herds of antelope, the 
prairie dogs, the vast droves of Texan cattle and 
the picturesque cattle-boys that drive them, the 
long dreary stretches of prairie where the melan- 
choly solitude is broken only by occasional little 
stations at which the train stops — are all familiar 
to everybody who has crossed the plains, and have 
been written about ad nauseam. Very curious are 
these small settlements, some of them consisting 
only of two or three mud, or rather adobe, houses, 
or of a few wooden shanties and a pumping-engine 
to supply water ; others being large villages or 
small towns. They look as if Providence had been 
carrying a box of toy houses, and had dropped the 
lid and spilt out the contents on the earth. The 
houses have all come down right end uppermost, 
it is true, but otherwise they show no evidence of 
design : they are scattered about in every conceiv- 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 53 

able direction, dumped down anywhere, appar- 
ently without any particular motive or reason for 
being so situated. The chief peculiarity noticeable 
about these little settlements and their inhabitants 
is that on the approach of a train everybody rushes 
to the front of his house and rings an enormous bell. 
I received quite an erroneous impression from this 
ceremony the first time I crossed the plains. I 
had read somewhere that the Chinese on the occa- 
sion of an eclipse or some natural phenomenon of 
that kind, which they attribute to the action of 
a malignant being, endeavour to drive away the 
evil influence by ringing bells, beating gongs, and 
making other hideous noises ; and I thought that 
the unsophisticated inhabitants of these frontier 
towns, not having become accustomed to the 
passage of a train, looked upon it as some huge, 
horrible, and dangerous beast, and sought to drive 
it away by employing the same means as the 
Chinese. I found out afterwards, however, that 
the object of the bell-ringing was to induce travel- 
lers to descend arid partake of hash. 

At one of these lonely little stations I was de- 
posited one fine evening in the early fall just 
before sundown. For a few moments only the place 
was all alive with bustle and confusion. The train 



54 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

represented everything that was civilised, all the 
luxuries that could be carried in a train were to be 
found on board of it, the people were all clothed 
in fashionable dresses, it was like a slice cut out of 
one of the Eastern cities set down bodily in the 
midst of a perfect wilderness. In a few seconds it 
was gone, civilisation vanished with it, the station 
relapsed into its normal condition of desolation, 
and I found myself almost alone in the heart of the 
desert. 

The day had been hot, and the air was resonant 
with the noise of crickets and cicali. The almost 
level prairie stretched out around me, fading away 
towards the east in interminable distances, while in 
the west the sun was just sinking behind a range 
of low sand-hills and bluffs. The air was still 
and calm, the sky perfectly cloudless, and the 
setting sun cast a faint delicate rosy hue over 
the sand and burnt sun-scorched herbage of the 
prairie, giving it the general tint and appearance 
of the Egyptian desert. It was very beautiful but 
somewhat melancholy, and I confess I felt rather 
blue and dismal as I watched the train vanishing 
in the distance ; nor were my spirits roused by 
learning from the station-master that Buffalo Bill 
and Texas Jack had left the fort that very morning 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 55 

on a hunting expedition. I had counted upon one 
or both of those famous scouts accompanying me, 
for General Sheridan had with characteristic kind- 
ness written to the officer commanding at the 
fort, requesting him to give me any assistance in 
his power, and if possible to let me have the 
valuable services of Mr. William Cody, otherwise 
Buffalo Bill, the government scout at the fort ; 
and I began to inveigh against the bad luck that 
had arranged that he should go out hunting the 
very day I arrived. However, I had to " take it 
all back," for just as I was stepping into the 
ambulance wagon that was waiting to take us to 
the fort, two horsemen appeared in sight, gallop- 
ing towards us, and the station-master sang out, 
" Say ! hold on a minute, here are the very men 
you want, I guess." In another minute or two 
they cantered up, swung themselves out of the 
saddle, threw their bridles over a post, caught up 
their rifles, and stepped on to the platform. I 
thought I had never seen two finer- looking speci- 
mens of humanity, or two more picturesque 
figures. Both were tall, well-built, active-looking 
men, with singularly handsome features. Bill was 
dressed in a pair of corduroys tucked into his high 
boots, and a blue flannel shirt. He wore a broad- 



56 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

brimmed felt hat, or sombrero, and had a white 
handkerchief folded like a little shawl loosely 
fastened round his neck, to keep off the fierce rays 
of the afternoon sun. Jack's costume was similar, 
with the exception that he wore moccasins, and 
had his lower limbs encased in a pair of comfort- 
ably greasy deer-skin trousers, ornamented with a 
fringe along the seams. Round his waist was a 
belt supporting a revolver, two butcher knives, and 
in his hand he carried his trusty rifle the " Widow." 
Jack, tall and lithe, with light brown close-cropped 
hair, clear laughing honest blue eyes, and a soft 
and winning smile, might have sat as a model 
for a typical modern Anglo-Saxon — if ethnologists 
will excuse the term. Bill was dark, with quick 
searching eyes, aquiline nose, and delicately cut 
features, and he wore his hair falling in long ringlets 
over his shoulders, in true Western style. As he 
cantered up, with his flowing locks and broad- 
brimmed hat, he looked like a picture of a Cavalier 
of olden times. Ah, well ! it is years ago now 
since the day I first shook hands with Jack and 
Bill, and many changes have taken place since 
then. At that time neither of them had visited 
the States, nor been anywhere east of the Missis- 
sippi : they knew scarcely more of civilisation 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 57 

and the life of great cities than the Indians around 
them. Afterwards they both went East and made 
money. Cody has, I believe, settled down on a 
ranch somewhere in Wyoming, and John Omo- 
hondro, better known as Texas Jack, has gone to 
other and better hunting grounds. Peace be with 
him ; he was a good and kind friend to me, a 
cheery companion, as brave as a lion, as gentle as a 
woman, always ready for anything, always willing 
to work, cutting down mountains of difficulties 
into molehills, always in good humour, never 
quarrelling — a better hunting companion than 
Jack was in those days, or a more reliable friend, 
it would be hard to find. There was nothing mean 
about Jack ; he was — to use one of his own Western 
phrases — a real white man. " Well," says Cody, 
after the ceremony of introduction had been got 
through, and we had made known our wishes and 
aspirations, " I guess we will both go along with 
you gents, if you like, and if I can get leave, and 
I don't know as there will be any trouble about 
that. You see Jack and I just started out this 
morning to get a load of meat, but there has been 
considerable of a fire down towards the forks, and 
scared all the game off ; and as we had not got 
no stores with us for more than a day or two, we 



58 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

concluded to come right back." " Oh Lord," I 
said ; " the game all scared off, is it ? what an 
infernal nuisance ! it does not look a very cheerful 
country to ride about in without plenty of game 
to 'liven one up." " Never you mind about deer 
and elk," cried Jack ; " you have no call to worry 
about that ; we will find game enough if you can 
hit them; you think the prairie don't look cheer- 
ful, eh ! Well it does seem kind of dismal, don't 
it, this time of year. Ah ! " he added enthusi- 
astically, " but you should see it in the summer, 
when the grass is all green, and the flowers is all 
ablowing, and the little birdies is a building of 
their nesties and boohooing around, and the deer 
are that fat they will scarcely trouble to get out of 
the way ; and as to eating, they are just splendid, 
immense ! I tell you ; ain't they, Bill ? " " Yes, 
sir, you bet your boots they are. But come on, 
Jack ; let's fork our ponies and skin out for the 
fort ; we don't want to stop here all night, anyhow. 
Good night, gentlemen ; we will see you in the 
morning and fix that hunt all right, I guess." 
And so Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack " fork their 
ponies and skin out," while we bundle ourselves 
into the wagon and rattle off as fast as six 
seventeen hands high mules can tear to the 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 59 

fort, where we were most kindly and hospitably 
received. 

Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack were as fine 
specimens of their race and class as could anywhere 
be found ; and that is saying a good deal, for 
honest hearts and stalwart frames and handsome 
features are not rare among the pioneers of Western 
civilisation. It might be supposed that these 
hunters, Indian-trackers, cattle-boys, and miners, 
are disagreeable people to come across. That is 
not the case at all. There are, of course, some 
rough characters, regular desperadoes, among 
them, and they occasionally shoot each other 
pretty freely in gambling quarrels and drunken 
sprees ; but to a stranger who knows how to 
behave himself they are, as far as my experience 
goes, most civil and obliging. If a man is civil to 
them they will be civil to him, and if he does not 
interfere about their affairs they won't bother 
about his, unless he wants their assistance, and 
then they will be ready and willing to give it. The 
manly sense of independence, the self-respect, and 
that feeling of respect for others engendered by 
it, which so strongly characterise the American 
people, are as deeply marked and have as good 
an effect among the nomads of the West as in 



60 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

any other class of the population. Of course if a 
man gives himself airs he must expect to pay for 
it. I remember rather an amusing instance of 
this. I had engaged a hunter and guide, a first- 
rate man, to accompany a friend of mine. The 
day before they were to start the guide came to 
me and said, " Now look here, friend. I ain't 
agoing to back out of this bargain, because I told 
you I'd go ; but I ain't sweet upon the job, I tell 
you. I never come across a chap with such a lot 
of side on in my life, and I don't like it. However, 
I said I'd go, and I'm agoing ; but I ain't agoing 
at the price I told you. I am going to charge him 
a dollar a day more." And so my friend enjoyed 
his expedition in blissful ignorance that he was 
paying four shillings and twopence a day extra for 
" side." 

The next morning, after paying some visits 
and making some preliminary arrangements for a 
hunt, I wandered off a little distance and sat down 
on the trunk of a fallen cottonwood tree, and tried 
to realise that I was in the middle of those prairies 
that, thanks to Captain Mayne Reid, had haunted 
my boyish dreams. I cannot say that the realisa- 
tion of my hopes fulfilled my expectation. I 
was oppressed with the vastness of the country, 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 61 

the stillness and the boundlessness of the plains 
seemed to press like a weight upon my spirits, and 
I was not sorry to get back into the bustle and 
busy life of the fort. After a while, though, when 
I became accustomed to the plains, the feeling of 
depression of spirits which was at first occasioned 
by the monotony and quiet colouring of every- 
thing faded away, and the limitlessness of the 
prairie only impressed me with a feeling of freedom, 
and created rather an exhilaration of spirits than 
otherwise. 

It was difficult in those days, and I suppose 
it is so now in most places, to enjoy much hunting 
on the plains without the assistance of the military. 
That assistance was never withheld if it could be 
given ; for among no class of people in any country 
in the world are the rites of hospitality better under- 
stood or more gracefully administered than among 
the officers of Uncle Sam's army. I always found 
them most courteous, kind, and obliging, ready 
to do anything in their power to help a stranger 
to see something of the country or to indulge in 
the pleasures of a hunt. I had no great difficulty 
therefore in obtaining permission to attach myself 
to a scouting party that was to leave the fort in a 
short time. 



62 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

The next two or three days were spent in 
making preparations, buying stores, &c. I thought 
the days interminable. I was crazy to get out on 
the plains and see one of these great wapiti, and 
it appeared to me that everything could have been 
ready in half an hour's time. However, it was 
no use hurrying ; one has to be philosophically 
patient and let things take their natural course. 
There is a regular routine to be observed in all 
these cases. At some places it takes you two days 
to fit out, at others three ; sometimes you may 
strike a man accustomed to do things on short 
notice, and able to get everything ready in two 
or three hours. Then there are endless delays 
on the day of starting. Something is sure to be 
forgotten ; girths or buckles break ; perhaps one 
of the drivers has had a birthday, and is suffering 
a little from the effects of it, and cannot be induced 
to pull himself together and get started at all. In 
fact, you must make up your mind to be quite 
content if the first day's march consists only of a 
few miles, just enough to get beyond the radius 
of the last whisky shop, so as to be certain of 
making a clear, fair-and-square move on the 
succeeding day. 

We got off pretty well, sent the wagons, 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 63 

escort, tents, and things away shortly after noon, 
and started ourselves a couple of hours later. It 
was with a feeling almost of exultation that I at 
last found myself riding on the boundless prairie, 
the tall flagstaff, and the wooden houses of the 
fort fading in the distance, and before me nothing 
but the illimitable wilderness. After a short 
gallop, we overtook the outfit on the banks of the 
Platte, an extraordinary river, which consists at 
all seasons, except when in full flood, of a broad 
band of shifting, soft, and dangerous sand, with 
a little water trickling about in it. It is in some 
places miles in breadth. There was a kind of 
bridge, composed of numerous holes, with a few 
wattles and planks and trunks of rotten trees 
thrown across them, the whole structure being 
supported on rickety trestles ; but it was in such 
a dangerous condition that we did not attempt to 
cross it, but preferred to ford the river, though 
the bed of it was strewn with wheels, axles, and 
fragments of wagons, a sight not very encouraging 
to the traveller. However, by dint of much hard 
swearing we got across, travelled a few miles on 
the other side, and camped close to the source of 
a little stream. Next morning shortly after day- 
light two or three of us started on ahead on the 



64 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

route that the wagons were to follow, and an 
event occurred — we saw our first wapiti. Almost 
immediately after leaving camp I spied two or 
three gigantic objects, with horns like branching 
trees, surveying us from a sand-hill at a little 
distance. I was nearly frightened to death at the 
sight, they looked so enormous in the dim light, 
and although I had absolutely seen the head of an 
elk at Chicago, I still had lingering doubts as to 
their existence. We tried to ride round them, 
but it was no use : they had seen the camp, and 
made off before we could get anywhere within 
range. We travelled all the rest of that day 
without seeing anything more : it was intensely 
hot, and altogether the journey was not a very 
pleasant one. The heat was most oppressive, 
although it was late in October, for there was not 
a breath of wind, and the treeless prairie does not 
afford a particle of shade of any kind ; being quite 
a green hand on the prairies, I was afraid to wander 
any distance from the wagons, lest I might lose 
myself ; and I found riding behind a wagon all 
day in the broiling sun on a rough-paced broncho 
so tiresome that I was well pleased when the 
camping-place for the night hove in sight. 
The country we traversed is peculiar ; the soil 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 65 

is of light sand, and the whole region is a vast series 
of sand-heaps. It looks as if the ocean in a violent 
gale — the height of the waves being exaggerated to 
some fifty or a hundred feet — had suddenly been 
arrested, solidified, and turned into sand. There 
are occasional level places, low bottoms, in which 
the water supplied by the winter snows and rains 
collects and remains some time after the great heats 
and droughts of summer have set in. These places 
are covered with a rank vegetation of tall grass, in 
which it is sometimes very difficult to force one's 
way on horseback ; but generally the surface of 
the country is sand, either devoid of vegetation or 
covered with patches of coarse grass ; and here and 
there are level tracts clothed with short, succulent, 
curling buffalo- grass. The wind has a great effect 
on the soft surface of the sand, and most of the hills 
have one side blown or scooped out, which makes 
the country somewhat dangerous to ride over, for 
one is apt, in galloping after some animal, to come 
suddenly upon a perpendicular cliff twenty or thirty 
feet high, the descent down which would result in 
broken bones for man and horse. The native 
horses are pretty well accustomed to this pecu- 
liarity of the country, and will stop suddenly, a 
proceeding which, though excellent and wise as 



66 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

regards themselves, is apt to result in the discom- 
fiture of the rider if he is new to the plains, and to 
cause him to describe a graceful parabola in the air, 
and fall down head foremost in the soft substance 
of the sand beneath. It is the easiest thing in the 
world to lose yourself in this broken sand-heapy 
country, for you will lose sight of the wagons when 
not a hundred yards from them, and not see them 
until you are right on the top of them again. There 
is of course no kind of road or track of any sort ; 
you simply travel in the direction which you wish to 
go, choosing the best line of country you can find. 

We camped that night on Little Sandy Creek, 
the south branch of the east fork of the western 
arm of one of the larger tributaries of the North 
Platte. It was on the next day's march that the 
first elk was killed. I was riding alone a little to 
the left of the wagons, much alarmed at not having 
them constantly in view, but still so anxious to get 
a shot that I ventured to keep off a little way. I 
had adopted by this time the manners and cus- 
toms of the native hunter, which consist in going 
up cautiously to the crest of a sand-hill, looking 
over inch by inch, and occasionally going to the 
top of the highest point in the neighbourhood and 
taking a good survey round with a pair of field- 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 67 

glasses. At last I was rewarded. Quietly craning 
my head over a sand-ridge, I saw lying at the bottom, 
not more than a couple of hundred yards from me, 
what looked at first like a great tangled mass of dry 
white sticks. It turned out to be the heads of three 
wapiti stags lying down close together. I man- 
aged without much difficulty to get a little nearer 
to them, left my horse, crawled up to the brow of 
the nearest ridge, got a fine shot, and fired. I hate 
taking a lying shot, and it would have been better 
in this case if I had roused the animals up ; how- 
ever, I fired at one as he lay, and struck him, but 
not fatally, and they all got up and made off. 
Noticing that one was wounded, I jumped on my 
horse and followed him. I speedily came up to 
him, for he was severely hit, dismounted, fired 
another shot, and laid him on the sand. He was 
not a very large stag, in fact he had a small head, 
but I thought him the most magnificent animal 
I had ever seen in my life. Fortunately for me, 
Buffalo Bill, who heard the shots and saw the 
wapiti making off, followed them and came to my 
assistance, helped me to cut him up, and after 
taking some meat on our saddles, brought me safely 
and speedily back to the wagons. The river we 
camped on is a good-sized stream. It flows through 



68 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

a generally flat country, but partially composed, as 
I have already said, of sand-hills and steep bluffs. 
Its course is the most peculiar I have ever seen in 
any river ; it twists and twines in a most miraculous 
manner, forming loops and figures of eight, and 
every kind of geometrical figure that can be made 
by curves. Two bends of the river will approach 
each other till they are separated only by a little neck 
of land a few yards in width, and then go away for 
ever so far, sweeping back again in such a manner 
that I should think a man in a canoe might have to 
travel twenty miles to accomplish a distance of 
perhaps two or three miles in a straight line 
by land. 

Where the stream has cut through high sand- 
hills or bluffs the banks are of course precipitous, 
almost perpendicular, but as a general rule there is 
a margin some hundred yards or so in width be- 
tween the edge of the stream and the high steep 
hills which form the banks of the river. Through 
these hills, composed of loose sand and other soft 
materials, winter rains have worn deep gullies, large 
enough to be termed canons, precipitous valleys 
leading up from the river, at right angles to its 
general course, to the level of the plain, and from 
these valleys other and smaller canons branch off 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 69 

in all directions, forming a labyrinth of steep pre- 
cipitous gullies. 

These canons, and indeed every crack and 
cranny below the level of the prairie, are thickly 
timbered with cypress ; in other words, the natural 
wood grows everywhere where it is not subjected 
to the continually recurring prairie fires which 
desolate the region, and wherever it is sheltered 
from the cutting blast of wintry winds, almost as 
destructive in their effects as fire. The river is 
fordable in most places as far as depth of water is 
concerned, but the bottom is very treacherous, con- 
sisting generally of soft shifting quicksand. We 
pitched our camp in a nice sheltered situation, not 
far from the head of one of the canons leading down 
to the river, near enough to the stream to be able 
to water our horses without inconvenience, and 
sufficiently close to the plain to get a good look out 
over the surrounding country without having to 
go too far. 

It was a pleasant and convenient camp, and we 
should have been very comfortable if we had not 
suffered so much from cold at night ; but unfor- 
tunately for us summer turned suddenly into winter, 
a violent snowstorm came on, and for a few days 
after it we felt the cold very severely. We had 



70 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

plenty of buffalo rugs and blankets, it is true, but 
there is a limit to the number of blankets that are 
useful ; a dozen will not keep a man any warmer 
than half a dozen, or half a dozen than two or three. 
I do not like sleeping in great cold ; it necessitates 
lying so still. The only chance is to get into bed, 
roll yourself well up in your blankets and buffalo 
robes while the tent is warm, see that there is no 
cranny or hole anywhere by which the air can pene- 
trate, and then lie perfectly quiet. You will experi- 
ence a most oppressive and inconvenient amount 
of heat at first, which it is very difficult to put up 
with, for it is almost impossible to resist the 
desire to kick off the clothes and get cool, but the 
temptation must be resisted, and you must lie per- 
fectly still — even if you boil — otherwise your chance 
of a comfortable night is gone. If you succeed in 
going to sleep, you will find, when you wake after 
three or four hours, that though the cold is intense 
your body still contains a considerable amount 
of caloric ; you must then pull the blankets com- 
pletely over your head, just leaving a little hole 
through which to obtain a scanty supply of fresh 
air, and remain in that position till you get up in 
the morning. It makes an enormous difference to 
your bodily heat having your head inside the blan- 



WAPITI-RUXXTXG OX THE PLAIXS 71 

kets, but it is not pleasant. In the morning you 
will find your air-hole encrusted with a thick coat- 
ing of ice, and your body by that time thoroughly 
cold and stiff, from lying so long in one position. 
However, that is one of the discomforts of hunting 
that has to be put up with. 

We scoured the country for the first couple of 
days in vain, seeing nothing, not even a fresh sign. 
On the third afternoon we — that is, myself and a 
friend and Buffalo Bill — were riding along, some- 
what dispirited, a little in the rear of Texas Jack, 
who had gone on ahead and had disappeared round 
a hill. Presently we caught sight of him again on 
a little bluff at some distance from us. He had 
dismounted, and was running round and round on 
all fours, making such extraordinary antics that I 
imagined he had gone suddenly insane, till Buffalo 
Bill explained that he was merely indicating to us 
in the language of the plain that there was some 
wapiti in sight and pretty near. So we approached 
him very cautiously, and looking over the edge of 
the bluff saw a sight which I shall never forget — 
a herd of at least 120 or 130 wapiti on the little 
plain below close to the edge of the river. They 
looked magnificent, so many of these huge deer to- 
gether. There were not many good heads among 



72 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

them, however, the herd consisting chiefly of 
hinds and young stags. They were in such a 
position that we could not make a good stalk upon 
them, and as it was getting late in the afternoon 
we determined to try and drive them, and so, after 
posting Jack and my friend in two favourable posi- 
tions, Buffalo Bill and I went round to try and 
creep as near the wapiti as we could. I did get 
two or three unfavourable shots, and missed, but 
the other two men were more fortunate, for they 
shot three elk out of the herd as they ran by. 

Next morning, a little before sunrise, I was 
awaked as usual by hearing scratch, scratch, against 
the canvas of my tent door. " Come in," I said, 
with a sleepy and somewhat sulky voice at being 
disturbed, for I could feel by the stiffened and 
frozen condition of the blankets about my mouth 
that it was a very cold morning, and I was still 
tolerably warm. My ct come in " was answered by 
the appearance of Jack's jolly cheerful face as he 
undid the strings that tied the tent door, and came 
in, rubbing his hands and stamping his feet. 
" Good morning," says Jack ; " it's about time to 
get up, it's a fine large morning, and going to be 
a great day for hunting." " All right, Jack, I will 
be up in a minute. In the meantime there is the 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 73 

pannikin, and there is the keg." Jack, like most 
prairie men, invariably introduced himself to the Sun- 
god with a copious libation of whisky. To take a big 
drink of raw whisky in the morning, and to touch 
nothing more during the rest of the day, appears 
to me a most extraordinary perversion of principle. 
However, it is a part of the manners and customs 
of the country, and may be adapted to that peculiar 
region. I have often tried to acquire the habit, 
but have never succeeded. It is true that to take 
one drink of whisky in the morning induces modi- 
fied intoxication for the whole of the day, and it is 
therefore an economical habit ; but it makes a man 
so unpleasantly drunk that he is apt to become a 
nuisance to himself and a terror to his friends. 
After Jack had tossed off his tot of whisky with the 
customary salutation, " How," to which we replied 
with the polite rejoinder," Drink hearty," we crawled 
out of our blankets and began to dress ourselves ; 
that is to say, to undress ourselves, for we slept 
with more clothes on than we wore in the daytime ; 
and then, having taken our drams in the shape of 
coffee, and gone through the slight ceremonial that 
answers to the getting-up of civilised life, we turned 
out, watered our horses, and started, accompanied 
by the captain in command of the scouting party. 



74 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

The captain, however, had a mishap, which neces- 
sitated his returning to camp, for in crossing a 
stream his horse took fright, reared, and fell back 
in the water. The result was that on emerging 
from the river the gallant captain took upon himself 
the appearance of a knight of old clad in a complete 
and glittering armour of ice. In a few moments 
his clothes were frozen and stiff as a board, and he 
had to gallop home, get himself wrapped up in 
blankets, and the circulation restored by external 
friction and internal applications of hot whisky 
and water. 

We rode for a long time, keeping a general 
direction down stream, but on the high ground on 
the banks of the river, without seeing anything or 
a sign of anything. 

About noon I at last caught a glimpse of some 
objects a long way off, on the side of a steep bluff. 
It is very hard to take a good view of a distant object 
on a cold winter's day from the top of an exposed 
hill, with the wind blowing through and through 
one, and one's eyes watering and one's benumbed 
hands shaking the glasses in a most inconvenient 
manner. And we were unable for some time to 
determine the nature of the animals, but at length 
made out that they were elk, and not what he feared 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 75 

at first they might be, Indians. As soon as we had 
made the joyful discovery we mounted our horses, 
and galloped off, making a long circuit down wind, 
so as to come upon the game from the proper direc- 
tion. Jack's instinct as a hunter stood us in good 
stead on this occasion. He brought us round 
beautifully to the exact spot where the deer lay, 
which was an exceedingly difficult thing to do, 
considering that when we first saw them they were 
four or five miles off, and were lying on a sand-hill 
exactly like hundreds and thousands of other sand- 
hills that surrounded us in every direction. There 
was not even the slightest landmark to point out 
the position of the elk, and having once got on our 
horses we never saw the 1 till Jack brought us 
within a few hundred yards of the herd. 

I had no idea where we were, when Jack said, 
" Now be mighty careful in going up this hill, and 
keep your eyes skinned : we ought to be able to see 
elk from the top." Accordingly we rode our horses 
up inch by inch, stooping down on their necks 
whenever we moved, and halting every two or three 
steps, and gradually raising our heads, so as to be 
sure of catching sight of the game before they saw 
us. When we discovered the deer, we found they 
were lying on the opposite hill-side, out of shot, 



y6 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

and we had to make another detour in order to get 
closer up ; and finally, having reached a place 
from whence we expected to be within easy range, 
we dismounted, gave our horses in charge to two 
soldiers who had accompanied us, and prepared to 
make a start on foot. It was not pleasant ground 
for crawling, covered as it was in patches with 
dwarf cacti, horrible little vegetable nuisances 
about the size of a cricket ball, covered with spikes 
that penetrate through moccasins into the soles of 
your feet, and fill your hands and knees till they 
look like pincushions. They go in easily enough, 
but being barbed at the end, they won't come out 
again. They are a great trouble to dogs. I had a 
collie with me that became so disgusted with these 
cacti, that if he found himself among patches of 
them, he would howl and yell with terror before he 
was hurt at all. They are very detrimental also to 
the human hunter, but of course it is better to be 
as covered with prickles as is the fretful porcupine 
than to miss a chance at a big stag ; and so, in spite 
of cacti, we crawled on our hands and knees, and 
after a while flat upon our waistcoats, till we got 
to the crest of the hill, and there found ourselves 
within two hundred yards of the game. We could 
not tell how large the herd was, for not more than 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 77 

twenty wapiti were in sight. Having mutually 
settled what we were to do, in a few hurried whis- 
pers, we selected each man his deer, fired all to- 
gether, and loaded and fired again as fast as we 
could. Wapiti are so stupid that when they do 
not get your wind, or see you, they will bunch up 
together and stand, poor things, some little time in 
a state of complete terror, uncertain which way to 
run or what to do, and we got several shots into 
them before they started, and when at length they 
did set off they went in such a direction that we 
were able to cut them off again by running across 
at an angle. We did so, and, making another care- 
ful stalk upon them, found them all gathered to- 
gether, looking about in all directions, and quite 
bewildered at being unable to see or smell the 
danger to which they were exposed. Signalling 
our horses to come up, we got three or four more 
shots at the elk before they made up their minds to 
start, and when at last they did get under way, we 
rushed to meet the horses, threw ourselves into the 
saddle, and started full gallop after them. 

Fortune again befriended us, for the deer ran 
round a steep bluff, and, by taking the other side of 
the hill, we succeeded in cutting them off again, 
and rode in right on the top of the herd, yelling and 



78 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

shouting to frighten them. In running Wapiti 
on horseback, the great thing is to get among them 
suddenly at great speed, and to scare them as much 
as possible. If you succeed in doing that, they get 
winded, and with a good horse you will be able to 
keep up with them for some little distance ; but if 
you let them get started gradually at their own 
pace, you have no more chance of coming up with 
them than with the man in the moon. However, 
this time we charged in among the herd, and kept 
up with them a long way. What became of the 
others I don't know, for I was too fully occupied 
with myself to take any notice of them. I rode in 
upon fifty or sixty of the huge beasts, kept my horse 
galloping right along with them, and loaded and 
fired as fast as I could, occasionally rolling over a 
deer. Presently I singled out a big stag, the best 
I could see, and devoted myself to him. With the 
usual cowardice of his sex, he thrust himself in 
among the hinds, and I had great difficulty in get- 
ting at him at all. Finally, I got a good broadside 
shot at him, but missed, for it is not an easy thing 
to hit a deer at full gallop with your own horse at 
full gallop also ; in fact it is about as hard a thing 
to do as a man can attempt in the way of shooting, 
particularly as, owing to the peculiarly dangerous 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 79 

nature of the ground, a man has to keep his eyes 
open, and cannot devote his entire attention to the 
animal he is pursuing, or even to his own horse. 
However, I stuck to my deer, though he doubled 
and turned in all directions, and at last by a lucky 
shot rolled him over like a rabbit, a fact which I 
announced by a yell which I should think must have 
been heard in settlements. 

As soon as I had done for him, I took after 
the rest of the herd, or rather the largest portion 
of the herd, for the main body of deer had broken 
up into several parties, and followed a little bunch 
of perhaps twenty or thirty, loading and firing, 
and every now and then bowling over a wapiti. 
I went on till my rifle fell from my hands through 
sheer exhaustion, and stuck in the sand, muzzle 
downwards. That of course stopped my wild 
career. Then I got off my horse, which was 
completely blown and stood with his legs wide 
apart, his nostrils quivering, his flanks heaving, 
pouring with sweat, and loosened his girths. I 
felt in pretty much the same condition, for it is 
hard work running elk on horseback ; so, having 
first extracted my rifle from its position in the 
sand, I led my horse slowly up to the top of a 
sand-hill, turned his head to the fresh vivifying 



80 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

wind, and sat down. I had not the remotest idea 
of where I was, how long I had been running the 
elk, how many I had killed, or anything else ; the 
excitement I had been in for the last half-hour or 
so was so great that I felt quite bewildered, and 
scarcely knew what had happened. It was natural 
that I should not know where I was, for the oldest 
hand will get turned round after running even 
buffalo on the prairie ; and elk are much worse 
than buffalo, for the latter will generally run 
tolerably straight, but the former go in circles, 
and double, and turn back on their tracks, and go 
in any direction it suits them. I was utterly and 
completely lost as far as finding my way back to 
camp was concerned, and I began all at once to 
feel a sense of dismalness creep over me. A sudden 
reaction set in after the great excitement I had 
enjoyed. Only a few seconds before I had been 
careering at full gallop over the prairie, shouting 
from sheer exuberance of spirits, every nerve in a 
state of intense excitation, the blood coursing 
madly through every artery and vein, every muscle 
and sinew strained to the uttermost, bestriding an 
animal in an equal state of excitement, and pursu- 
ing a herd of flying creatures, all instinct with life 
and violent movement. In a second it was all 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 81 

gone. Like a flash the scene changed. The 
wapiti disappeared as if by magic. There was 
not a living creature of any kind to be seen, and 
the oppressive silence was unbroken by the faintest 
sound. I looked all around the horizon ; not a 
sign of life ; everything seemed dull, dead, quiet, 
unutterably sad and melancholy. The change 
was very strange, the revulsion of feeling very 
violent and not agreeable. I experienced a most 
extraordinary feeling of loneliness, and so having 
stopped a few minutes to let my horse get his 
wind, and to recover my faculties a little, I got 
on my exhausted steed, cleaned the sand out of 
my rifle, slowly rode up to the top of the highest 
sand-hill in the neighbourhood, and there sat 
down again to look about me. I dare say the 
reader will ask, " Why did not you take your back 
track, and so find your way ? " I should have 
tried that of course in time, but it is not an easy 
matter to follow one's footmarks when the whole 
country is ploughed up and tracked over with the 
feet of flying animals, and I had in all probability 
been describing curves, crossing my trail many 
times ; so I sat me down on the top of my sand- 
hill and waited. 

After what seemed to me an intolerable time, 

F 



82 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

probably nearly half an hour, I saw, in the distance, 
a little black spot crawling up a high sand-hill and 
remaining stationary at the top, and by the aid 
of my glass I made out a man and a horse. The 
man and horse remained where they were ; I 
also did not stir ; and in a few minutes more I 
had the pleasure of seeing in another direction 
another man and horse climbing to the top of a 
sand-hill. I felt sure they were my friends, for 
we had always settled among ourselves that if we 
got separated in running elk or buffalo, or any- 
thing, each man should get to the top of the 
highest point he could find, wait there some little 
time, and in this way we should be sure to get 
together again ; and so after fixing well in my eye 
the position of the first man I had seen, I got on 
my horse and started in that direction. After a 
bit I rode up another high sand-hill to take an 
observation, and finding my friend still in the 
same place, continued my way towards him. In 
about an hour we had all got together again, and 
after briefly giving each other an account of our 
success, we struck out for the end of the track 
where I had left my stag, and took the trail back. 
Such a scene of slaughter I had never viewed 
before ; for two or three miles the dead elk lay 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 83 

thick upon the ground ; it was like a small battle- 
field ; a case of prairie murder, as the captain 
said. By Jove, how we did work that afternoon, 
gralloching the deer ! It was dark by the time we 
had got through our task, and with bent and 
aching backs and blunted knives had returned to 
camp, about the dirtiest, most blood-stained, 
hungriest, happiest, most contented, and most 
disreputable-looking crowd to be found anywhere 
in the great territories of the West. I shall never 
participate in such a day's sport as that again. 
It was wonderful, because it partook of the double 
nature of stalking and running on horseback, for 
we had our stalk first, and killed five or six wapiti 
on foot, and then we had our run and killed a 
lot more. The next two days we were busily 
engaged in cutting up the meat with axes and 
taking it into camp, for it must not be supposed 
that an ounce of all that meat was wasted ; we 
hauled every bit of it out to the fort, where the 
demand for fresh venison greatly exceeded our 
supply. 

The worst of killing so much game in a short 
time is that it brings one's hunt to a premature 
end. We had got all the meat we could carry, 
and there was nothing for us to do but hitch up 



84 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

our teams and drive back to settlements. Two or 
three days after our return the fort had a narrow 
escape of being burned up in the night by a prairie 
fire of unusual magnitude. The fire originated a 
long way off, down on the Republican river, but 
there was a stiff breeze blowing at the time, and 
it travelled with most amazing swiftness towards 
us. While it was still miles and miles away the 
whole sky was lit up with a fierce lurid glare, and 
as it soon became evident that it was coming in 
our direction, energetic measures were at once 
taken to fight the foe. All the troops, consisting, 
if I remember right, of eight companies of infantry 
and two or three troops of cavalry, were ordered 
out, and every other able-bodied man in the fort 
was requisitioned. The fire bore down upon us 
from the south with awful speed and overwhelming 
power. It was terrifying but grand to see it 
coming. The country to the south is very hilly, 
with long valleys leading down towards the fort. 
The fire would work its way comparatively slowly 
up a hill, and then pausing as it were for a moment 
on the brink, would be caught by the wind and 
hurled down the slope with a roar that could be 
heard miles away. It poured down the valleys 
with a rush, tossing a spray of flames twenty or 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 85 

thirty feet high into the air, like as if a vast pent- 
up flood of molten metal had suddenly burst its 
barriers and spread over the plain. No living 
creature that walks the earth, however fleet of 
foot, could have escaped the fierce onslaught of 
those flames. The approach of the fire was not 
uniform and regular, but was affected by every 
change and flaw of wind ; sometimes it would 
move slowly, with a loud crackling noise like that 
made by a bundle of dry sticks burning ; then it 
would come tearing on in leaps and bounds, de- 
vouring the earth and roaring like a huge furnace. 
Occasionally a great body of fire advanced steadily 
in one direction for some time, till, checked by 
some change of wind, it would die down altogether, 
or move on in some other course ; but, in spite of 
occasional deflections of this kind, the general 
drift of the fire was straight towards us, and it 
soon became painfully evident that unless the 
enemy could be checked or turned aside the fort 
was doomed. Fire is an awful foe, but the men 
met it gallantly — advancing in line, commanded 
by their officers, as if moving against a living 
enemy, only, instead of being armed with sabre 
and rifle, they carried water-buckets and blankets. 
As soon as they got as near as the intense heat 



86 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

would allow them, they set to work burning broad 
strips of grass before the advancing flames. It 
is of course impossible to cope with the fire itself, 
no creature could stand near it for a moment and 
live ; the only way to deal with it is to burn the 
ground in front of the object you want to save, 
so that when the fire comes down to the burned 
and bare place it shall be forced, from want of 
fuel, to turn aside. That sounds simple enough, 
but in the case I am thinking of it was difficult 
and dangerous work. The grass was very high, 
dry as tinder, and with a strong gale blowing it 
was no easy matter to keep in check the flames 
that were lit on purpose. The men had to keep 
on firing the grass and beating down the flames 
with blankets, and firing it further on and beating 
it down again, until a strip of burned ground, so 
broad that it could not be overleaped by the 
flames, was interposed between the fire and the 
fort. It is hard to imagine anything more hellish 
than that scene. The heat was intense, the sky 
glowed lurid, red with the reflection of the flames, 
the fire poured down towards us as if it would 
devour everything in its way, and between us and 
the flames, standing out clear and distinct against 
the intense bright light, was the fighting line, 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 87 

wild-looking figures waving coats and blankets as 
they furiously beat the flames, men rushing to and 
fro and mounted officers galloping up and down 
the rank. After some hours' incessant hard work, 
they beat the fire, thrust it on one side, and saved 
the fort ; but it was a very, very narrow escape, 
for the flames passed awfully close to the hay- 
yard, where a whole winter's supply of forage was 
stacked. A few yards nearer, and the hay must 
have ignited, and if that had once caught fire 
nothing could have saved the stables and all the 
other buildings in the place. There was no actual 
danger to life, for the barrack square of hard bare 
earth was sufficiently large to have afforded shelter 
and safety to all the human beings in the fort ; 
but the horses would probably have perished, and 
the stores, and barracks, and officers' quarters, 
and in fact the whole settlement, would have been 
burned to ashes. The fire travelled some 200 
miles that night, destroyed a lot of cattle, leaped 
over two or three good-sized streams, and was 
finally arrested in its devastating course by a 
large river. 

We remained some time in that country, 
made several expeditions from the fort, had many 
little adventures, and enjoyed much good sport, 



88 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

but never again had such a run after wapiti as 
that which I have endeavoured to describe. Cir- 
cumstances must be very favourable to ensure a 
good run after elk : the ground must be tolerably 
hard, or else there is no chance whatever, and you 
must be able to get near enough to the game 
unseen to enable you to burst in upon them at 
the first spurt, otherwise you will never get up 
with them at all. I remember once chasing a 
wounded stag nearly all day along with a friend 
who was hunting with me and a government 
scout. It was most ludicrous : we got within 
about 300 yards of him, and do what we would we 
could get no nearer. We followed in this way for 
hours, till our horses were completely blown, and 
eventually killed him, because the deer himself 
became exhausted through loss of blood, just as 
our horses were giving out. The scout had got 
within a hundred yards or so, and was just pulling 
up his completely played-out horse, when the 
deer stood still for a moment, which gave the 
man time to slip out of the saddle and finish him 
with a lucky shot. He was a fine stag, with a good 
pair of horns. A nice chase he gave us, and a nice 
job we had to get back to camp that night. We 
were completely lost, had been running round 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 89 

and round, up and down, in and out, for hours, 
and it was more by good luck than good manage- 
ment that we hit upon the river and got safe 
home. 

The prairie is the place to go to if you want to 
make a big bag, but for true sport commend me 
to the forest and the hills. To me at least there 
is infinitely more charm in stalking wapiti among 
the mountains, in the magnificent scenery to be 
found there, than in running them on the plains. 
The plains, although they give one a sense of 
freedom and a certain exaltation from their im- 
mensity, yet are dismal and melancholy, and 
running elk, although intensely exciting, is scarcely 
a legitimate and sportsmanlike way of hunting 
such a noble beast. But in the mountains, stalking 
elk, picking out a good stag and creeping up to 
him, is as fine a sport as can be obtained anywhere 
in the world ; in fact, it is like deerstalking in 
Scotland, with everything in grand proportions, 
mountains many thousand feet in height instead of 
hills of a few hundred, and a magnificent animal 
weighing 600 or 800 pounds instead of a com- 
paratively small deer which would not turn the 
scale at twenty stone. 

Wapiti used to be, and I suppose still are, 



90 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

plentiful in all the mountainous regions of the 
Western Territories. They were very numerous 
formerly in that portion of Colorado with which 
I am best acquainted, namely, Estes Park and the 
mountains and valleys surrounding it ; but now 
that the Park is settled up their visits are com- 
paratively rare. The flat country used to be full 
of them in autumn, they would run among the 
cattle, and apparently take little notice of them ; 
but chasing them with hounds has made them 
very shy, and now they do not often come down 
except in winter, when deep snow upon the range 
compels them to seek pasturage on the lower 
grounds. Still, there are even now plenty of 
them in the neighbourhood, and wapiti can 
always be found with a little trouble at any 
season of the year. 

Thirty years ago Estes Park was a hunter's 
paradise. Not only were all the wild beasts of the 
continent plentiful, but the streams also were alive 
with trout, as for the matter of that they are still ; 
and we often devoted a day to fishing, by way of 
varying our sport and obtaining a little change of 
diet. In summer there was nothing peculiar about 
the method of fishing ; we used artificial flies, or 
live grasshoppers, and caught multitudes of trout, 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 91 

for they generally took the fly so well that I never 
remember finding myself in the position of the 
gentleman who was heard complaining to a friend 
that he had been " slinging a five and twenty cent 
bug, 1 with a twenty foot pole, all day, and had not 
had nary bite " ; and on the rare occasions on which 
they did not rise freely at the artificial insect, you 
were pretty sure to get them with a live " hopper." 
There is another advantage also in using the last- 
mentioned bait, namely, that it assures a double 
amount of sport and labour, for catching grass- 
hoppers is a great deal harder work than hooking 
trout. But in winter we had to fish through holes 
in the ice, and that is a somewhat peculiar proceed- 
ing. The first time I ever fished trout through the 
ice was in the Park. Three of us started off one 
fine bright winter's morning, and rode about ten or 
twelve miles up the main creek, to a place near some 
beaver dams where trout were said to be plentiful, 
carrying with us an axe, a sack, some twine and 
hooks, a bit of raw pork, and of course our rifles. 
Having dismounted, tied up my horse, and selected 

1 The Americans have retained the original meaning of the word " bug," 
and apply it to various insects: for instance, a daddy-long-legs, fire-fly, or 
lady-bird would be called a straddle bug, a lightning bug, or a lady bug. 
The peculiar reptile which has monopolised the term among us is dis- 
tinguished in the States by prefixing the name of that article of furniture 
in which he loves to lurk, and where his presence murders sweet repose. 



92 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

what I thought was a likely looking spot, I set to 
work to cut through the ice, while my companions 
rode some way further up the stream. 

I cut and chopped and got pretty warm, for it 
is no joke cutting through two feet of solid ice, and, 
after some labour, struck down upon an almost dry 
gravel bed. I repeated the same operation the 
second time to my great disgust ; but on the third 
attempt the axe went suddenly through into deep 
water. You know something about it, and will agree 
with me that the proper way to set to work is to 
chop a square hole, taking pains to cut down very 
evenly ; the improper way is to do as I did the first 
time — cut carelessly, get down deeper on one side 
of the square than on the other, suddenly strike 
the axe through, and get the hole full of water, 
while yet there are several inches of ice to be cut 
through. If anyone will try chopping ice in a hole 
two feet deep and full of water, he will discover 
that the splashing, though graceful to look at, is 
not comfortable to feel in cold weather. Fishing 
through the ice is chilly and depressing work. I 
mean such fishing as I am thinking of when you are 
exposed to all the keen airs of heaven, a solitary 
shivering mortal out all alone in the wilderness. 
Of course if two young persons go out fishing for 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 93 

Tommy-cods, as they occasionally do on the St. 
Lawrence, through a hole in the ice, with a nice little 
hut built over it, and a nice little stove inside, why 
things are quite different. 

I cannot say that fishing through the ice under 
ordinary circumstances is very exciting sport, but 
there is something comical about it, and it affords 
a certain amount of innocent enjoyment. When 
I rejoined my pals that evening, I could not forbear 
laughing at the peculiar appearance of the winter 
trout-fisher as represented by a staid, respectable 
member of society, who looked as if he ought to be 
engaged in some learned or scientific pursuit or 
dressed in good broadcloth, and poring over his 
books in some well-filled library. His costume was 
remarkable. His feet were protected by volumi- 
nous moccasins stuffed with many woollen socks ; 
his legs encased in dingy and somewhat greasy 
corduroys ; his body in an ancient, blood-stained, 
weather-beaten jacket, with two or three pieces of 
old sacking or gunny bags hung on the shoulders, 
and strapped round the waist to keep off the wind ; 
an ordinary deerstalking cap, with pieces filched 
from a buffalo robe sewn on the ear-flaps, pulled 
over the brows and tied under the chin, and a long 
and tattered woollen muffler wound round and 



94 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

round the neck, allowed little of the fisherman's 
face to be seen, except a nose, purple with cold, 
from which hung a little icicle, and a pair of eyes 
gazing intently at the hole in the ice over which he 
stooped. Patiently he crouched over his fishing 
hole, occasionally stirring up the water to keep it 
from freezing, holding in his hand a fishing-rod in 
the shape of a stick about a foot long, from which 
depended a piece of thick twine attached to a hook 
armed with the eye of a deceased trout as a bait. At 
intervals he would twitch out a fish, pull him violently 
off the hook — a man cannot employ much delicacy 
of manipulation when his hands are encased in thick 
fingerless mittens — and throw him on a heap of his 
forerunners in misfortune, where he speedily froze 
solid in the very act of protesting by vigorous con- 
tortions against his cruel fate. We caught I should 
be ashamed to say how many dozen trout on that 
occasion. I know we had the best part of a sack- 
ful, but as to the exact size of the sack I propose to 
retain a strict reserve, lest I should be accused of 
taking a mean advantage of that noble little fish the 
trout. 

On the way home we shot a mountain sheep. 
We came suddenly and unexpectedly upon three of 
them, started our host of the ranch Griff Evan's 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 95 

huge hound Plunk after them, jumped off our 
horses, and put out up the mountain on foot after 
the dog. What a pace those sheep went up that 
mountain, and what a pace old Plunk went up after 
them, and what a ludicrously long way behind we 
were left ! It made one quite ashamed of being a 
man to see the manner in which the sheep and the 
dog got away up the mountain and out of sight before 
we had panted and perspired up a few hundred feet. 
We might have saved ourselves the trouble of climb- 
ing, for presently down came one of the sheep, 
followed closely by Plunk and preceded by a small 
avalanche of rattling gravel and bounding stones, in 
such a hurry that he as nearly as possible ran 
between the legs of one of the sportsmen. The 
animal passed literally within two yards of him with 
such startling effect that he had no time to do any- 
thing but fire his rifle off in the air in a kind of vague 
and general way. Plunk stuck to the sheep gallantly, 
and pressed him so hard that he went to bay in the 
bed of the river, at a place where the water rushes 
foaming down a steep descent among a mass of 
huge boulders, and there he met his fate. 

" That was my first experience," said Willie, 
" with Ovis Montana, the bighorn or mountain 



96 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

sheep. I don't think I care for hunting big game 
with hounds. I'd rather pit my intelligence and 
cunning and senses against those of my quarry 
in a solitary stalk. But the mere mention of 
mountain sheep opens the flood-gates of memories, 
and I will tell you more about them some other 
night if you so please. In the meantime, don't 
you think it is about time for bed ? I only hope 
my wapiti-running has not sunk me in your 
estimation to the level of an inhuman hunter 
thirsting for blood. Such slaughter, the prairie 
looking like a battlefield ! I hate it. The hunting 
instinct is dead in me and I have no lust for 
blood." 

" But I can understand the wild excitement," 
I rejoined, " and how the fierce instincts of God 
knows how many ancestral generations of men 
living by the chase may under such excitement 
be evoked ; and you wasted nothing. Had those 
noble beasts been left to wolves and foxes I could 
not have forgiven it. But the meat was wanted and 
was used. That saves your face. Sleep in peace." 

The morning broke clear, hard and cold. Not 
a shred of cloud, not a breath of soft air from the 
south gave promise of a change, and we spent a 
quiet uneventful day. 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 97 

It wanted about two hours to sundown when 
the thin sound of distant voices reached us through 
the still crisp air, and presently the party foreseen 
by Willie Whisper came into camp. He proved 
accurate in his vision. The party consisted of 
two English gentlemen novices in the woods, and 
three countrymen — " habitants " as they would be 
styled in Quebec — conducting them on a hunting 
trip. They had, as Willie suggested, run down 
the stream in two birch-bark canoes to the little 
chain of lakes, where, finding the ice too thick 
to permit of attempting to break a passage for 
so fragile a structure as a birch-bark, they had 
" cached " their canoes and stores, and tramped 
across the cranberry marshes to the disused lumber 
camp in which we had taken up our temporary 
abode. The afternoon passed busily in helping 
to make the newcomers — guests in a sort of way 
— comfortably at home. Cheerily it passed also, 
for they brought some luxuries in their packs, 
flour, tea and sugar, a little keg of butter, and a 
littler one of whisky. By nightfall we had all 
settled down to wait for a thaw with what patience 
we could command. Willie Whisper stayed with 
us during the cold snap, and took his share and 
contributed his share of shelter, warmth, and 



98 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

food. The guides knew him by reputation, and 
welcomed the chance of hearing a yarn from him ; 
for if he was in one of his silent moods no one 
could get anything out of him at all. 

" Well, gents," said the elder of the two guides 
when we had finished supper that night, " your 
Indian says this frost ain't set in for good, and I 
guess he ought to know. But it looks like we 
were going to be stuck up in this old shanty in 
the middle of a cranberry swamp for some days 
with nothing to do but chop wood. I and my 
partner are taking these two gents in to try and 
get a moose. It's a kind of new job for us. I 
was sent in a couple of months ago to report upon 
a patch of likely looking timber, and my partner 
here to look at a place where some durned fool 
thought he had found gold. Now we are after 
moose and caribou. We go into these cursed 
swamps and woods for business. The gents 
go for pleasure. Now I don't suppose our 
business experiences would interest you, but 
if you, sir " (turning to Willie), " would tell us 
what took you in for pleasure, and where the 
pleasure comes in, why, if agreeable to you it 
would be agreeable to me and my partner, and it 
would be interesting I am sure to these two gents, 



WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 99 

who are going in hunting for the first time. Any 
way, it would pass the time and keep us from 
quarrelling for want of something else to do. 
What do you say to spinning us a yarn ? " 

"Well," said Willie Whisper, " I've hunted a 
bit in the woods, among the mountains and on 
the great plains, and the memory of those hunts 
is pretty fresh. But as to the pleasure to be 
found in hunting, you must judge of that for 
yourselves. Some people find no pleasure where 
there is no profit. To others the mere fact that 
there is no profit constitutes half the pleasure. 
Well, here goes. What shall I begin with ? You 
two gentlemen are about to have your first ex- 
perience of the Canadian woods, so I may as well 
make a start with moose-hunting in Canada." 

It would be tedious to allude to the episodes 
of each recurring day. The daylight hours were 
short in the ordinary routine of an idle camp — 
cooking, eating, foraging for food, trout and a 
few spruce partridges, cleaning guns, mending 
moccasins, cutting firewood, and so on. I will 
just recount the substance of the yarns that were 
spun night after night before the red fire. 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 

Moose-hunting, if it has no other advantages, 
at least leads a man to solitude and the woods, 
and life in the woods tends to develop many 
excellent qualities which are not invariably pro- 
duced by what we are pleased to call our civilisa- 
tion. It makes a man patient, and able to bear 
constant disappointments ; it enables him to 
endure hardship with indifference, and it produces 
a feeling of self-reliance which is both pleasant 
and serviceable. True luxury, to my mind, is 
only to be found in such a life. No man who has 
not experienced it knows what an exhilarating 
feeling it is to be entirely independent of weather, 
comparatively indifferent to hunger, thirst, cold, 
and heat, and to feel himself capable not only of 
supporting but of enjoying life thoroughly, and 
that by the mere exercise of his own faculties. 
Happiness consists in having few wants and being 
able to satisfy them, and there is more real 
comfort to be found in a birch-bark camp than 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 101 

in the most luxuriously furnished and carefully 
appointed dwelling. 

Such a home I have often helped to make. It 
does not belong to any recognised order of architec- 
ture, although it may fairly claim an ancient origin. 
To erect it requires no great exercise of skill, and 
calls for no training in art schools. I will briefly 
describe it. 

A birch-bark camp is made in many ways. The 
best plan is to build it in the form of a square, 
varyingin size according to the number of inhabitants 
that you propose to accommodate. Having selected 
a suitable level spot and cleared away the shrubs and 
rubbish, you proceed to make four low walls com- 
posed of two or three small suitable-sized pine logs 
laid one on the other, and on these little low walls 
so constructed you raise the framework of the 
camp. This consists of light thin poles, the lower 
ends being stuck into the upper surface of the pine 
trees which form the walls, and the upper ends 
leaning against and supporting each other. The 
next operation is to strip large sheets of bark off 
the birch trees, and thatch these poles with them to 
within a foot or two of the top, leaving a sufficient 
aperture for the smoke to escape. Other poles are 
then laid upon the sheets of birch bark to keep 



102 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

them in their places. A small doorway is left in 
one side, and a door is constructed out of slabs of 
wood or out of the skin of some animal. The 
uppermost log is hewn through with an axe, so that 
the wall shall not be inconveniently high to step 
over, and the hut is finished. Such a camp is per- 
fectly impervious to wind or weather, or rather can 
be made so by filling up the joints and cracks be- 
tween the sheets of birch bark and the interstices 
between the pine logs with moss and dry leaves. 
You next level off the ground inside, and on three 
sides of the square strew it thickly with the small 
tops of the safin or Canada-balsam fir, for a breadth 
of about four feet ; then take some long pliant ash 
saplings or withy rods, and peg them down along 
the edge of the pine tops to keep your bed or carpet 
in its place, leaving a bare space in the centre of the 
hut, where you make your fire. Two or three rough 
slabs of pine to act as shelves must then be fixed 
into the wall, a couple of portage-straps or tump- 
lines stretched across on which to hang your clothes, 
and the habitation is complete. r 

I ought perhaps to explain what a " portage- 
strap " and a " portage " are. Many French and 
Spanish words have become incorporated with the 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 103 

English language in America. The western cattle- 
man or farmer speaks of his farm or house as his 
" ranch," calls the enclosure into which he drives 
his stock a " corral," fastens his horse with a " lariat," 
digs an " acequia " to irrigate his land, gets lost in the 
" chapparal " instead of the bush ; and uses com- 
monly many other Spanish words and expressions. 
No hunter or trapper talks of hiding anything ; he 
" caches " it, and he calls the place where he has 
stowed away a little store of powder, flour, or some 
of the other necessaries of life, a " cache." The 
French word " prairie," as everybody knows, has 
become part and parcel of the English language. 
Indians and half-breeds, who never heard French 
spoken in their lives, greet each other at meeting 
and parting with the salutation " bo jour " and 
" adieu." And so the word " portage " has come 
to be generally used to denote the piece of dry land 
separating two rivers or lakes over which it is neces- 
sary to carry canoes and baggage when travelling 
through the country in summer. Sometimes it is 
literally translated and called a " carry." Another 
French word, " traverse," is frequently used in 
canoeing, to signify a large unsheltered piece of 
water which it is necessary to cross. A deeply 



104 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

laden birch-bark canoe will not stand a great deal 
of sea, and quite a heavy sea gets up very rapidly on 
large fresh-water lakes, so that a long " traverse " is 
a somewhat formidable matter. You may want to 
cross a lake, say, five or six miles in width, but of such 
a size that it would take you a couple of days to coast 
all round. That open stretch of five or six miles 
would be called a " traverse." 

The number and length of the portages on any 
canoe route, and the kind of trail that leads over 
them, are important matters to consider in canoe 
travelling. A man in giving information about any 
journey will enter into most minute particulars 
about them. He will say, " You go up such and 
such a river," and he will tell you all about it — 
where there are strong rapids ; where it is very 
shallow ; where there are deep still reaches in 
which the paddle can be used, and where you must 
pole, and so forth. Then he will tell you how you 
come to some violent rapid or fall that necessitates 
a " portage," and explain exactly how to strike into 
the eddy, and shove your canoe into the bank at a 
certain place, and take her out there, and how long 
the " portage " is ; whether there is a good trail, or a 
bad trail, or no trail at all ; and so on with every 
" portage " on the route. Carrying canoes and 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 105 

baggage across the " portage " is arduous work. A 
birch-bark canoe must be treated delicately, for it 
is a very fragile creature. You allow it to ground 
very carefully ; step out into the water, take out all 
the bales, boxes, pots, pans, bedding, rifles, &c. ; 
lift up the canoe bodily, and turn her upside down 
for a few minutes to drain the water out. The 
Indian then turns her over, grasps the middle 
thwart with both hands, and with a sudden twist of 
the wrists heaves her up in the air, and deposits her 
upside down on his shoulders, and walks off with 
his burden. An ordinary-sized Micmac or Meli- 
cite canoe, such as one man can easily carry, weighs 
about 70 or 80 lbs., and will take two men and about 
600 or 700 lbs. 

The impedimenta are carried in this manner. 
A blanket, doubled to a suitable size, is laid 
upon the ground; you take your portage-strap, or 
tump-line as it is sometimes called, which is com- 
posed of strips of webbing or some such material, 
and is about twelve feet long, a length of about 
two feet in the centre being made of a piece of 
broad soft leather ; you lay your line on the 
blanket so that the leather part projects, and fold 
the edges of the blanket over either portion of 
the strap. You then pile up the articles to be 



106 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

carried in the centre, double the blanket over 
them, and by hauling upon the two parts of the 
strap bring the blanket together at either side, 
so that nothing can fall out. You then cut a 
skewer of wood, stick it through the blanket in 
the centre, securely knot the strap at either end, 
and your pack is made. You have a compact 
bundle with the leather portion of the portage- 
strap projecting like a loop, which is passed over 
the head and shoulders, and the pack is carried 
on the back by means of the loop which passes 
across the chest. If the pack is very heavy, and 
the distance long, it is usual to make an additional 
band out of a handkerchief or something of that 
kind, to attach it to the bundle, and pass it across 
the forehead, so as to take some of the pressure 
off the chest. The regular weight of a Hudson's 
Bay Company's package is 80 lbs. ; but any 
Indian or half-breed will carry double this weight 
for a considerable distance without distress. A 
tump-line, therefore, forms an essential part of 
the voyageur's outfit when travelling, and it 
comes in handy also in camp as a clothes- 
line on which to hang one's socks and moccasins 
to dry. 

A camp such as that I have attempted to 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 107 

describe is the best that can be built. An ordinary 
camp is constructed in the same way, but with 
this difference, that instead of being in the form 
of a square it is in the shape of a circle, and the 
poles on which the bark is laid are stuck into the 
ground instead of into low walls. There is not 
half so much room in such a camp as in the 
former, although the amount of material em- 
ployed is in both cases the same. It may be 
objected that the sleeping arrangements cannot 
be very luxurious in camp. A good bed is 
certainly an excellent thing, but it is very hard 
to find a better bed than Nature has provided 
in the wilderness. It would appear as if Provi- 
dence had specially designed the Canada-balsam 
fir for the purpose of making a soft couch for 
tired hunters. It is the only one, so far as I am 
aware, of the coniferous trees of North America 
in which the leaves or sficuiee lie perfectly flat. 
The consequence of that excellent arrangement is 
that a bed made of the short tender tips of the 
Canada balsam, spread evenly to the depth of 
about a foot, is one of the softest, most elastic, 
and most pleasant couches that can be imagined ; 
and as the scent of the sap of the Canada balsam 
is absolutely delicious, it is always sweet and 



108 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

refreshing — which is more than can be said for 
many beds of civilisation. 

Hunger is a good sauce. A man coming in 
tired and hungry will find more enjoyment in a 
piece of moose meat and a cup of tea than in the 
most luxurious of banquets. Moreover it must 
be remembered that some of the wild meats of 
North America cannot be excelled in flavour and 
delicacy ; nothing, for instance, can be better 
than moose or caribou, mountain sheep or ante- 
lope. The " moufle," or nose of the moose, and 
his marrow bones, are dainties which would be 
highly appreciated by the most accomplished 
epicures. The meat is good, and no better 
method of cooking it has yet been discovered than 
the simple one of roasting it before a wood fire 
on a pointed stick. Simplicity is a great source of 
comfort, and makes up for many luxuries ; and 
nothing can be more simple, and at the same 
time more comfortable, than life in such a birch- 
bark camp as I have attempted to describe. In 
summer time and in the fall, until the weather 
begins to get a little cold, a tent affords all the 
shelter that the sportsman or the tourist can 
require. But when the leaves are all fallen, when 
the lakes begin to freeze up, and snow covers the 



"N 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 109 

earth, or may be looked for at any moment, the 
nights become too cold to render dwelling in 
tents any longer desirable. A tent can be used in 
winter, and I have dwelt in one in extreme cold, 
when the thermometer went down as low as 3 2° 
below zero. It was rendered habitable by a little 
stove, which made it at the same time exceedingly 
disagreeable. A stove sufficiently small to be 
portable only contained wood enough to burn for 
an hour and a half or so. Consequently some one 
had to sit up all night to replenish it. Now, 
nobody could keep awake, and the result was that 
we had to pass through the unpleasant ordeal of 
alternately freezing and roasting during the whole 
night. The stove was of necessity composed of 
very thin sheet iron, as lightness was an important 
object, and consequently when it was filled with 
good birch wood and well under way, it became 
red-hot, and rendered the atmosphere in the 
tent insupportable/ In about half an hour or so 
it would cool down a little, and one would drop 
off to sleep, only to wake in about an hour's time 
shivering, to find everything frozen solid in the 
tent, and the fire nearly out. Such a method of 
passing the night is little calculated to ensure 
sound sleep./ In the depth of winter it is quite 



no CANADIAN NIGHTS 

impossible to warm a tent from the outside, 
however large the fire may be. It must be built 
at such a distance that the canvas cannot possibly 
catch fire, and hence all heat is dispersed long 
before it can reach and warm the interior of the 
tent. It is far better to make a " lean-to " of 
the canvas, build a large fire, and sleep out in the 
open. ''A " lean-to " is easily made and scarcely 
needs description. The name explains itself. 
You strike two poles, having a fork at the upper 
end, into the ground, slanting back slightly ; lay 
another fir pole horizontally between the two, 
and resting in the crutch ; then place numerous 
poles and branches leaning against the horizontal 
pole, and thus form a framework which you cover 
in as well as you can with birch bark, pine boughs, 
pieces of canvas, skins, or whatever material is 
most handy. You build an enormous fire in the 
front, and the camp is complete. A " lean-to " 
must always be constructed with reference to the 
direction of the wind ; it serves to keep off the 
wind and a certain amount of snow and rain. In 
other respects it is, as the Irishman said of the 
sedan-chair with the bottom out, more for the honour 
and glory of the thing than anything else. For all 
practical purposes you are decidedly out of doors. 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA in 

Although the scenery of the greater part of 
Canada cannot justly be described as grand or 
magnificent, yet there is a weird, melancholy, 
desolate beauty about her barrens, a soft loveli- 
ness in her lakes and forest glades in summer, a 
gorgeousness of colour in her autumn woods, and 
a stern, sad stateliness when winter has draped 
them all with snow, that cannot be surpassed in 
any land. I remember, as distinctly as if I had 
left it but yesterday, the beauty of the camp from 
which I made my first successful expedition after 
moose one calling season. I had been out several 
times unsuccessfully, sometimes getting no answer 
at all ; at others, calling a bull close up, but 
failing to induce him to show himself ; sometimes 
failing on account of a breeze springing up, or of 
the night becoming too much overcast and cloudy 
to enable me to see him. My companions had 
been equally unfortunate. We had spent the 
best fortnight of the season in this way, and had 
shifted our ground and tried everything in vain. 
At last we decided on one more attempt, broke 
camp, loaded our canoes, and started. We made 
a journey of two days, traversing many lovely 
lakes, carrying over several portages, and arrived 
at our destination about three o'clock in the 



ii2 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

afternoon. We drew up our canoes at one of the 
prettiest spots for a camp I have ever seen. It 
lay beside a little sheltered secluded bay at the 
head of a lovely lake, some three or four miles in 
length. The shores near us were covered with 
" hardwood " trees — birch, maple, and beech, in 
their glorious autumn colours ; while the more 
distant coasts were clothed with a sombre dark 
mass of firs and spruce. Above the ordinary level 
of the forest rose at intervals the ragged gaunt 
form of some ancient and gigantic pine that had 
escaped the notice of the lumberman, or had 
proved unworthy of his axe. In front of us and 
to the right, acting as a breakwater to our harbour, 
lay a small island covered with hemlock and 
tamarack trees, the latter leaning over in various 
and most graceful angles, overhanging the water 
to such an extent as sometimes to be almost 
horizontal with it. Slightly to the left was a 
shallow spot in the lake marked by a growth of 
rushes, vividly green at the top, while the lower 
halves were of a most brilliant scarlet, affording 
the precise amount of warmth and bright colour- 
ing that the picture required. It is extraordinary 
how everything seems to turn to brilliant colours 
in the autumn in these northern latitudes. The 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 113 

evening was perfectly still ; the surface of the 
lake, unbroken by the smallest ripple, shone like 
a mirror and reflected the coast-line and trees so 
accurately that it was impossible to tell where 
water ended and land began. 

The love of money and the love of sport are the 
passions that lead men into such scenes as these. 
The lumberman, the salmon fisher, and the hunter 
in pursuit of large game, monopolise the beauties 
of nature in these Canadian wilds. The moose 
(Gervus Alces) and caribou (Cervus rangifer) are 
the principal large game to be found in Canada. 
The moose is by far the biggest of all existing deer. 
He attains to a height of quite 18 hands, and 
weighs about 1200 pounds or more. The moose 
of America is almost, if not quite, identical with 
the elk of Europe, but it attains a greater size. 
The horns especially are much finer than those to 
be found on the elk in Russia, Prussia, or the 
Scandinavian countries. 

The moose has many advantages over other 
deer, but it suffers also from some terrible dis- 
advantages, which make it an easy prey to its 
great and principal destroyer, man. Whereas 
among most, if not all, the members of the deer 
tribe, the female has but one fawn at a birth, the 

H 



ii4 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

cow moose generally drops two calves — which is 
much in favour of the race. The moose is blessed 
with an intensely acute sense of smell, with an 
almost equally acute sense of hearing, and it is 
exceedingly wary and difficult of approach. On 
the other hand, it is but little fitted to move in 
deep snow, owing to its great weight. Unlike 
the caribou, which has hoofs specially adapted 
for deep snow, the moose's feet are small compared 
with the great bulk of the animal. If, therefore, 
it is once found and started when the snow lies 
deep upon the ground, its destruction is a matter 
of certainty ; it breaks through the snow to solid 
earth at every step, becomes speedily exhausted, 
and falls an easy prey to men and dogs. Again, 
a large tract of land is necessary to supply food 
for even one moose. In summer it feeds a good 
deal upon the stems and roots of water-lilies, but 
its staple food consists of the tender shoots of the 
moose-wood, ground-maple, alder, birch, poplar, 
and other deciduous trees. It is fond of ground- 
hemlock, and will also occasionally browse upon 
the sapin or Canada balsam, and even upon spruce, 
though that is very rare, and I have known them 
when hard pressed to gnaw bark off the trees. 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are nearly 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 115 

" settled up." More and more land is cleared 
and brought under cultivation every day ; more 
and more forest cut down year by year ; and the 
moose-supporting portion of the country is be- 
coming very limited in extent. On the other 
hand, the moose is an animal which could easily 
be preserved if only reasonable laws could be 
enforced. It adapts itself wonderfully to civilisa- 
tion. A young moose will become as tame as a 
domestic cow in a short time. Moose become 
accustomed to the ordinary noises of a settled 
country with such facility that they may some- 
times be found feeding within a few hundreu 
yards of a road. A railway does not appear to 
disturb them at all. I have shot moose within 
sound of the barking of dogs and the cackling of 
geese of a farmhouse, in places where the animals 
must have been constantly hearing men shouting, 
dogs barking, and all the noises of a settlement. 
Their sense of hearing is developed in a wonderful 
degree, and they appear to be possessed of some 
marvellous power of discriminating between inno- 
cent sounds and noises which indicate danger. 
On a windy day, when the forest is full of noises 
— trees cracking, branches snapping, and twigs 
breaking — the moose will take no notice of all 



u6 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

these natural sounds ; but if a man breaks a twig, 
or, treading on a dry stick, snaps it on the ground, 
the moose will distinguish that sound from the 
hundred voices of the storm, and be off in a 
second. 

Why it is that the moose has developed no 
peculiarity with regard to his feet, adapting him 
especially to the country in which he dwells, 
while the caribou that shares the woods and 
barrens with him has done so in a remarkable 
degree, I will leave philosophers to decide. In 
the caribou the hoofs are very broad and round, 
and split up very high, so that, when the animal 
treads upon the soft surface of the snow, the 
hoofs spreading out form a natural kind of snow- 
shoe, and prevent its sinking deep. The frog 
becomes absorbed towards winter, so that the 
whole weight of the animal rests upon the hoof, 
the edges of which are as sharp as a knife, and 
give the animals so secure a foothold that they 
can run without fear or danger on the slippery 
surface of smooth glare ice. Now the moose, on 
the contrary, is about as awkward on the ice as a 
shod horse, and will not venture out on the frozen 
surface of a lake if he can help it. His feet are 
rather small and pointed, and allow him to sink 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 117 

and flounder helplessly in the deep snows of mid- 
winter and early spring. 

There are several ways in which the moose is 
hunted ; some legitimate and some decidedly ille- 
gitimate. First of all there is moose-calling, which 
to my mind is the most interesting of all woodland 
sports. It commences about the beginning of 
September, and lasts for about six weeks, and 
consists in imitating the cry of the female moose, 
and thereby calling up the male. This may sound 
easy enough to do, especially as the bull at this 
season of the year loses all his caution, or the 
greater part of it. But the pastime is surrounded 
by so many difficulties, that it is really the most 
precarious of all the methods of pursuing or en- 
deavouring to outwit the moose ; and it is at the 
same time the most exciting. I will endeavour to 
describe the method by giving a slight sketch of 
the death of a moose in New Brunswick woods 
last year. 

It was early in October. We had pitched our 
tents — for at that season of the year the hunter 
dwells in tents — upon a beautiful hardwood ridge, 
bright with the painted foliage of birch and 
maple. The weather had been bad for calling, 
and no one had gone out, though we knew there 



n8 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

were moose in the neighbourhood. We had cut 
a great store of firewood, gathered bushels of 
cranberries, dug a well in the swamp close by, 
and attended to the thousand and one little 
comforts that experience teaches one to provide 
in the woods, and had absolutely nothing to do. 
The day was intensely hot and sultry, and if any 
one had approached the camp about noon he 
would have deemed it deserted. All hands had 
hung their blankets over the tents by way of pro- 
tection from the sun, and had gone to sleep. 
About one o'clock I awoke, and sauntered out of 
the tent to stretch my limbs and take a look at 
the sky. I was particularly anxious about the 
weather, for I was tired of idleness, and had de- 
termined to go out if the evening offered a tolerably 
fair promise of a fair night. To get a better view 
of the heavens I climbed to my accustomed look- 
out in a comfortable fork near the summit of a 
neighbouring pine, and noted with disgust certain 
little black shreds of cloud rising slowly above 
the horizon. To aid my indecision I consulted 
my dear old friend John Williams, the Indian, 
who after the manner of his kind stoutly refused 
to give any definite opinion on the subject. All 
that I could get out of him was, " Well, dunno ; 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 119 

mebbe fine, mebbe wind get up ; guess pretty 
calm, perhaps, in morning. Suppose we go and 
try, or praps mebbe wait till to-morrow." Finally 
I decided to go out ; for although if there is the 
slightest wind it is impossible to call, yet any wise 
and prudent man, unless there are unmistakable 
signs of a storm brewing, will take the chance ; 
for the calling season is short and soon over. 

I have said that an absolutely calm night is 
required for calling, and for this reason : the 
moose is so wary that in coming up to the call 
he will invariably make a circle down wind in 
order to get scent of the animal which is calling 
him. Therefore, if there is a breath of wind astir, 
the moose will get scent of the man before the 
man has a chance of seeing the moose. A calm 
night is the first thing necessary. Secondly, you 
must have a moonlight night. No moose will 
come up in the daytime. You can begin to call 
about an hour before sunset, and moose will 
answer up to, say, two hours after sunrise. There 
is very little time, therefore, unless there is bright 
moonlight. In the third place, I need scarcely 
observe that to call moose successfully you must 
find a place near camp where there are moose to 
call, and where there are not only moose, but bull 



120 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

moose ; not only bull moose, but bulls that have 
not already provided themselves with consorts ; for 
if a real cow begins calling, the rough imitation 
in the shape of a man has a very poor chance of 
success, and may as well give it up as a bad job. 
Fourthly, you must find a spot that is convenient 
for calling, that is to say, a piece of dry ground, 
for no human being can lie out all night in the 
wet, particularly in the month of October, when 
it freezes hard towards morning. You must have 
dry ground well sheltered with trees or shrubs of 
some kind, and a tolerably open space around it 
for some distance ; open enough for you to see 
the bull coming up when he is yet at a little dis- 
tance, but not a large extent of open ground, 
for no moose will venture out far on an entirely 
bare exposed plain./ He is disinclined to leave 
the friendly shelter of the trees. A perfect spot, 
therefore, is not easily found. Such are some of 
the difficulties which attend moose-calling, and 
render it a most precarious pastime. Four con- 
ditions are necessary, and all four must be com- 
bined at one and the same time. 

Having once determined to go out, preparations 
do not take long. You have only to roll up a 
blanket and overcoat, take some tea, sugar, salt, 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 121 

and biscuit, a kettle, two tin pannikins, and a 
small axe, with, I need scarcely say, rifle and 
ammunition. The outfit is simple ; but the 
hunter should look to everything himself, for an 
Indian would leave his head behind if it were 
loose. A good thick blanket is very necessary, 
for moose-calling involves more hardship and 
more suffering from cold than any other branch 
of the noble science of hunting with which I am 
acquainted. It is true that the weather is not 
especially cold at that time of year, but there are 
sharp frosts occasionally at night, and the moose- 
caller cannot make a fire by which to warm himself, 
for the smell of smoke is carried a long way by the 
slightest current of air. Neither dare he run about 
to warm his feet, or flap his hands against his 
sides, or keep up the circulation by taking exercise 
of any kind, for fear of making a noise. He is sure 
to have got wet through with perspiration on his 
way to the calling place, which of course makes 
him more sensitive to cold. 

So I and the Indian shouldered our packs, and 
started for the barren, following an old logging 
road. Perhaps I ought to explain a little what is 
meant by a " logging road " and a " barren." 
A logging road is a path cut through the forest in 



122 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

winter, when the snow is on the ground and the 
lakes are frozen, along which the trunks of trees 
or logs are hauled by horses or oxen to the water. 
A logging road is a most pernicious thing. Never 
follow one if you are lost in the woods, for one 
end is sure to lead to a lake or a river, which is 
decidedly inconvenient until the ice has formed ; 
and in the other direction it will seduce you deep 
into the inner recesses of the forest, and then 
come to a sudden termination at some moss- 
covered decayed pine-stump, which is discourag- 
ing. A " barren," as the term indicates, is a 
piece of waste land ; but, as all hunting grounds 
are waste, that definition would scarcely be 
sufficient to describe what a " barren " is. It 
means in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick an 
open marshy space in the forest, sometimes so 
soft as to be almost impassible, at other times 
composed of good solid hard peat. The surface 
is occasionally rough and tussocky, like a great 
deal of country in Scotland. 

In Newfoundland there are barrens of many 
miles in extent, high, and, comparatively speaking, 
dry plateaux ; but the barrens in the provinces I 
am speaking of vary from a little open space of a 
few acres to a plain of five or six miles in length 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 123 

or breadth. There has been a good deal of dis- 
cussion as to the origin of these " barrens." It 
appears to me that they must have been originally 
lakes which have become dry by the gradual 
elevation of the land, and through the natural 
processes by which shallow waters become choked 
up and filled with vegetable debris. They have 
all the appearance of dry lakes. They are about 
the size of the numerous sheets of water that are 
so frequent in the country. The forest surrounds 
them completely, precisely in the same way as it 
does a lake, following all the lines and curvatures 
of the bays and indentations of its shores ; and 
every elevated spot of dry solid ground is covered 
with trees exactly as are the little islands that so 
thickly stud the surfaces of the Nova Scotian lakes. 
Most of the lakes in the country are shallow, and 
in many of them the process by which they become 
filled up can be seen at work. The ground rises 
considerably in the centre of these barrens, which 
is, I believe, the case with all bogs and peat 
mosses. I have never measured any of their areas, 
neither have I attempted to estimate the extent 
of the curvature of the surface ; but on a barren 
where I hunted last year, of about two miles 
across, the ground rose so much in the centre 



i2 4 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

that when standing at one edge we could see 
only the upper half of the pine trees which grew 
at the other. The rise appeared to be quite 
gradual, and the effect was as if one stood on an 
exceedingly small globe, the natural curvature of 
which hid the opposite trees. 

To return to our calling. We got out upon the 
barren, or rather upon a deep bay or indentation 
of a large barren, about four o'clock in the after- 
noon, and made our way to a little wooded island 
which afforded us shelter and dry ground, and 
which was within easy shot of one side of the bay, 
and so situated with regard to the other that a 
moose coming from that direction would not 
hesitate to approach it. *- The first thing to be 
done is to make a lair for oneself — a little bed. 
You pick out a nice sheltered soft spot, chop down 
a few sapin branches with your knife, gather a 
quantity of dry grass or bracken, and make as 
comfortable a bed as the circumstances of the 
case will permit.^ 

Having made these little preparations, I sat 
down and smoked my pipe while the Indian climbed 
up a neighbouring pine tree to " call." The only 
object of ascending a tree is that the sound may 
be carried further into the recesses of the forest. 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 125 

The instrument wherewith the caller endeavours 
to imitate the cry of the cow consists of a cone- 
shaped tube made out of a sheet of birch bark 
rolled up. This horn is about eighteen inches in 
length and three or four in diameter at the broadest 
end, the narrow end being just large enough to fit 
the mouth. The " caller " uses it like a speaking- 
trumpet, groaning and roaring through it, imitating 
as well as he can the cry of the cow moose. Few 
white men can call really well, but some Indians 
by long practice can imitate the animal with 
wonderful success. Fortunately, however, no two 
moose appear to have precisely the same voice, 
but make all kinds of strange and diabolical noises, 
so that even a novice in the art may not despair of 
himself calling up a bull. The real difficulty — 
the time when you require a perfect mastery of 
the art — is when the bull is close by, suspicious 
and listening with every fibre of its intensely 
accurate ear to detect any sound that may reveal 
the true nature of the animal he is approaching. 
The smallest hoarseness, the slightest wrong vibra- 
tion, the least unnatural sound, will then prove 
fatal. The Indian will kneel on the ground, putting 
the broad end of the horn close to the earth so as 
to deaden the sound, and with an agonised expres- 



126 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

sion of countenance will imitate with such mar- 
vellous fidelity the wailing, anxious, supplicating 
cry of the cow, that the bull, unable to resist, 
rushes out from the friendly cover of the trees, and 
exposes himself to death. Or it may be that the 
most accomplished caller fails to induce the sus- 
picious animal to show himself : the more ignoble 
passion of jealousy must then be aroused. The 
Indian will grunt like an enraged bull, break dead 
branches from the trees, thrash his birch-bark horn 
against the bushes, thus making a noise exactly like 
a moose fighting the bushes with his antlers. The 
bull cannot bear the idea of a rival, and, casting his 
prudence to the winds, not unfrequently falls a 
victim to jealousy and rage. 

The hunter calls through his horn, first gently, 
in case there should be a bull very near. He then 
waits a quarter of an hour or so, and, if he gets no 
answer, calls again a little louder, waiting at least a 
quarter of an hour — or half an hour some Indians 
say is best — after each attempt. 

The cry of the cow is a long-drawn-out melan- 
choly sound, impossible to describe by words. The 
answer of the bull moose, on the contrary, is a 
rather short guttural grunt, and resembles at a 
great distance the sound made by an axe chopping 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 127 

wood, or that which a man makes when pulling 
hard at a refractory clay pipe. You continue call- 
ing at intervals until you hear an answer, when 
your tactics depend upon the way in which the 
animal acts. Great acuteness of the sense of hear- 
ing is necessary, because the bull will occasion- 
ally come up without answering at all ; and the 
first indication of his presence consists of the slight 
noise he makes in advancing. Sometimes a bull 
will come up with the most extreme caution ; at 
others he will come tearing up through the woods, 
as hard as he can go, making a noise like a steam- 
engine, and rushing through the forest apparently 
without the slightest fear. 

On the particular occasion which I am recalling, 
it was a most lovely evening. It wanted but about 
half an hour to sundown, and all was perfectly 
still. There was not the slightest sound of anything 
moving in the forest except that of the unfrequent 
flight of a moose-bird close by. And so I sat watch- 
ing that most glorious transformation scene — the 
change of day into night ; saw the great sun sink 
slowly down behind the pine trees ; saw the few 
clouds that hovered motionless above me blaze 
into the colour of bright burnished gold ; saw the 
whole atmosphere become glorious with a soft 



128 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

yellow light, gradually dying out as the night crept 
on, till only in the western sky there lingered a 
faint glow fading into a pale cold apple-green, 
against which the pines stood out as black as mid- 
night, and as sharply defined as though cut out of 
steel. As the darkness deepened, a young crescent 
moon shone out pale and clear, with a glittering 
star a little below the lower horn, and above her 
another star of lesser magnitude. It looked as 
though a supernatural jewel — a heavenly pendant, 
two great diamond solitaires, and a diamond cres- 
cent — were hanging in the western sky. After a 
while, the moon too sank behind the trees, and 
darkness fell upon the earth. 

I know of nothing more enchanting than a per- 
fectly calm and silent autumnal sunset in the woods, 
unless it be the sunrise, which to my mind is more 
lovely still. Sunset is beautiful, but sad ; sunrise 
is equally beautiful, and full of life, happiness, and 
hope. I love to watch the stars begin to fade, to 
see the first faint white light clear up the darkness 
of the eastern sky, and gradually deepen into the 
glorious colouring that heralds the approaching 
sun. I love to see nature awake shuddering, 
as she always does, and arouse herself into 
active, busy life ; to note the insects, birds, 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 129 

and beasts shake off slumber and set about their 
daily tasks. 

Still, the sunset is inexpressibly lovely, and I 
do not envy the condition and frame of mind of a 
man who cannot be as nearly happy as man can be, 
when he is lying comfortably on a luxurious and 
soft couch, gazing in perfect peace on the glorious 
scene around him, rejoicing all his senses, and 
saturating himself with the wonderful beauties of 
a northern sunset. 

So I sat quietly below, while the Indian called 
from the tree-top. Not a sound answered to the 
three or four long-drawn-out notes with which he 
hoped to lure the bull ; after a long interval he called 
again, but the same perfect, utter silence reigned 
in the woods, a silence broken only by the melan- 
choly hooting of an owl, or the imaginary noises 
that filled my head. It is extraordinary how small 
noises become magnified when the ear is kept at a 
great tension for any length of time, and how 
the head becomes filled with all kinds of fictitious 
sounds ; and it is very remarkable also how utterly 
impossible it is to distinguish between a loud noise 
uttered at a distance and a scarcely audible sound 
close by. After listening very intently amidst the 
profound silence of a quiet night in the forest for 



130 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

an hour or so, the head becomes so surcharged 
with blood, owing, I presume, to all the faculties 
being concentrated on a single sense, that one 
seems to hear distant voices, the ringing of bells, 
and all kinds of strange and impossible noises. A 
man becomes so nervously alive to the slightest 
disturbance of the almost awful silence of a still 
night in the woods, that the faintest sound — the 
cracking of a minute twig, or the fall of a leaf, even 
at a great distance — will make him almost jump out 
of his skin. He is also apt to make the most ludi- 
crous mistakes. Towards morning, about day- 
break, I have frequently mistaken the first faint 
buzz of some minute fly, within a foot or so of my 
ear, for the call of moose two or three miles off. 

About ten o'clock the Indian gave it up in de- 
spair and came down the tree ; we rolled ourselves 
up in our rugs, pulled the hoods of our blanket 
coats over our heads, and went to sleep. I awoke 
literally shaking with cold. It was still the dead 
of night ; and the stars were shining with intense 
brilliancy, to my great disappointment, for I was 
in hopes of seeing the first streaks of dawn. It was 
freezing very hard, far too hard for me to think of 
going to sleep again. So I roused the Indian and 
suggested that he should try another call or two. 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 131 

Accordingly we stole down to the edge of the 
little point of wood in which we had ensconced 
ourselves, and in a few minutes the forest was re- 
echoing the plaintive notes of the moose. Not an 
answer, not a sound — utter silence, as if all the 
world were dead ! broken suddenly and horribly 
by a yell that made the blood curdle in one's veins. 
It was the long, quavering, human, but unearthly 
scream of a loon on the distant lake. After what 
seemed to me many hours, but what was in reality 
but a short time, the first indications of dawn re- 
vealed themselves in the rising of the morning star, 
and the slightest possible paling of the eastern sky. 
The cold grew almost unbearable. That curious 
shiver that runs through nature — the first icy 
current of air that precedes the day — chilled us to 
the bones. I rolled myself up in my blanket and 
lighted a pipe, trying to retain what little caloric 
remained in my body, while the Indian again 
ascended the tree. By the time he had called twice 
it was grey dawn. Birds were beginning to move 
about, and busy squirrels to look out for their 
breakfast of pine-buds. I sat listening intently, 
and watching the blank emotionless face of the 
Indian as he gazed around him, when suddenly I 
saw his countenance blaze up with vivid excite- 



132 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

ment. His eyes seemed to start from his head, his 
muscles twitched, his face glowed, he seemed trans- 
formed in a moment into a different being. At 
the same time he began with the utmost celerity, 
but with extreme caution, to descend to the ground. 
He motioned me not to make any noise, and whis- 
pered that a moose was coming across the barren 
and must be close by. Grasping my rifle, we 
crawled carefully through the grass, crisp and 
noisy with frost, down to the edge of our island of 
woods, and there, after peering cautiously around 
some stunted juniper bushes, I saw standing, 
about sixty yards off, a bull moose. He looked 
gigantic in the thin morning mist which was be- 
ginning to drift up from the surface of the barren. 
Great volumes of steam issued from his nostrils, 
and his whole aspect, looming in the fog, was vast 
and almost terrific. He stood there perfectly 
motionless, staring at the spot from which he had 
heard the cry of the supposed cow, irresolute 
whether to come on or not. The Indian was 
anxious to bring him a little closer, but I did not 
wish to run the risk of scaring him, and so, taking 
aim as fairly as I could, considering I was shaking 
all over with cold, I fired and struck him behind 
the shoulder. He plunged forward on his knees, 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 133 

jumped up, rushed forward for about two hundred 
yards, and then fell dead at the edge of the heavy 
timber on the far side of the barren. 

We went to work then and there to skin and 
clean him, an operation which probably took us an 
hour or more, and, having rested ourselves a few 
minutes, we started oft to take a little cruise round 
the edge of the barren and see if there were any 
caribou on it. I should explain that " cruising " 
is in the provinces performed on land as well as at 
sea. A man says he has spent all summer " cruis- 
ing " the woods in search of pine timber, and if your 
Indian wants you to go out for a walk, he will 
say, " Let us take a cruise around somewhere." 
Accordingly, we trudged off over the soft yielding 
surface of the bog, and, taking advantage of some 
stunted bushes, crossed to the opposite side, so as 
to be well down wind in case any animals should be 
on it. The Indian then ascended to the top of the 
highest pine-tree he could find, taking my glasses 
with him, and had a good look all over the barren. 
There was not a thing to be seen. We then passed 
through a small strip of wood, and came out upon 
another plain, and there, on ascending a tree to 
look round, the Indian espied two caribou feeding 
towards the timber. We had to wait some little 



134 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

time till they got behind an island of trees, and then, 
running as fast as the soft nature of the ground 
would permit, we contrived to get close up to them 
just as they entered the thick woods, and, after an 
exciting stalk of about half an hour, I managed to 
kill both. 

Having performed the obsequies of the chase 
upon the two caribou, we returned to our calling- 
place. By this time it was about noon : the sun 
was blazing down with almost tropical heat. We 
had been awake the greater part of the night, and 
had done a hard morning's work, and felt a decided 
need for refreshment. In a few minutes we had 
lighted a little fire, put the kettle on to boil, and set 
the moose kidneys, impaled on sharp sticks, to 
roast by the fire ; and with fresh kidneys, good 
strong tea, plenty of sugar and salt, and some hard 
biscuit, I made one of the most sumptuous break- 
fasts it has been my lot to assist at. 

Breakfast over, I told the Indian to go down to 
camp and bring up the other men to assist in cutting 
up and smoking the meat. As soon as he had de- 
parted I laid myself out for a rest. I shifted my 
bed — that is to say, my heap of dried bracken and 
pine tops — under the shadow of a pine, spread my 
blanket out, and lay down to smoke a pipe of peace 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 135 

in the most contented frame of mind that a man 
can ever hope to enjoy in this uneasy and trouble- 
some world. I had suffered from cold and from 
hunger — I was now warm and well fed. I was tired 
after a hard day's work and long night's vigil, and 
was thoroughly capable of enjoying that greatest of 
all luxuries — sweet repose after severe exercise. The 
day was so warm that the shade of the trees fell 
cool and grateful, and I lay flat on my back, smok- 
ing my pipe, and gazing up through the branches 
into a perfectly clear, blue sky, with occasionally a 
little white cloud like a bit of swansdown floating 
across it, and felt, as I had often felt before, that 
no luxury of civilisation can at all compare with the 
comfort a man can obtain in the wilderness. I lay 
smoking till I dropped off to sleep, and slept soundly 
until the men coming up from camp awoke me. 

Such is a pretty fair sample of a good day's 
sport. It was not a very exciting day, and I have 
alluded to it chiefly because the incidents are 
fresh in my mind. The great interest of moose- 
calling comes in when a bull answers early in the 
evening, and will not come up boldly, and you 
and the bull spend the whole night trying to 
outwit each other. Sometimes, just when you 
think you have succeeded in deceiving him, a 



136 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

little air of wind will spring up ; he will get scent 
of you, and be off in a second. Sometimes a bull 
will answer at intervals for several hours, will 
come up to the edge of the open ground, and 
there stop and cease speaking. You wait, anxiously 
watching for him all night, and in the morning, 
when you examine the ground, you find that 
something had scared him, and that he had 
silently made off, so silently that his departure 
was unnoticed. It is marvellous how so great 
and heavy a creature can move through the woods 
without making the smallest sound ; but he can 
do so, and does, to the great confusion of the 
hunter. 

Sometimes another bull appears upon the scene, 
and a frightful battle ensues ; or a cow will com- 
mence calling and rob you of your prey ; or you 
may get an answer or two in the evening, and 
then hear nothing for several hours, and go to 
sleep and awake in the morning to find that the 
bull had walked calmly up within ten yards of 
you. Very frequently you may leave camp on a 
perfectly clear, fine afternoon, when suddenly a 
change will come on, and you may have to pass 
a long dreary night on some bare and naked spot 
of ground, exposed to the pitiless pelting of the 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 137 

storm. One such night I well remember last fall. 
It rained, and thundered, and blew the whole 
time from about eight o'clock, until daylight at 
last gave us a chance of dragging our chilled and 
benumbed bodies back to camp. Fortunately 
such exposure, though unpleasant, never does one 
any harm in the wilderness. 

Occasionally a moose will' answer, but nothing 
will induce him to come up, and in the morn- 
ing, if there is a little wind, you can resort to the 
only other legitimate way of hunting the moose, 
namely, " creeping," or " still hunting," as it 
would be termed in the States, which is as nearly 
as possible equivalent to ordinary deerstalking. 

After the rutting season the moose begin to 
" yard," as it is termed. I have seen pictures of 
a moose-yard in which numbers of animals are 
represented inside and surrounded by a barrier 
of snow, on the outside of which baffled packs of 
wolves are clamorously howling ; and I have seen 
a moose-yard so described in print as to make it 
appear that a number of moose herd together 
and keep tramping and tramping in the snow to 
such an extent that by mid-winter they find 
themselves in what is literally a yard — a hollow 
bare place, surrounded by deep snow. Of course 



138 CANADIAN RIGHTS 

such a definition is utterly absurd. A moose does 
not travel straight on when he is in search of food, 
but selects a particular locality, and remains there 
as long as the supply of provisions holds out ; 
and that place is called a yard. 

Sometimes a solitary moose " yards " alone, 
sometimes two or three together, occasionally as 
many as half a dozen may be found congregated 
in one place. When a man says he has found a 
" moose-yard," he means that he has come across 
a place where it is evident from the tracks crossing 
and recrossing and intersecting each other in all 
directions, and from the signs of browsing on the 
trees, that one or more moose have settled down 
to feed for the winter. Having once selected a 
place or " yard," the moose will remain there till 
the following summer if the food holds out, and 
they are not disturbed by man. If forced to leave 
their " yard," they will travel a long distance — 
twenty or thirty miles — before choosing another 
feeding-ground. After the rutting season moose 
wander about in an uneasy state of mind for three 
weeks or so, and are not all settled down till the 
beginning of November. 

In " creeping," therefore, or stalking moose, the 
first thing to be done is to find a moose-yard. 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 139 

You set out early in the morning, in any direction 
you may think advisable, according to the way the 
wind blows, examining carefully all the tracks that 
you come across. When you hit upon a track, 
you follow it a little way, examining it and the 
ground and trees, to see if the animal is travelling 
or not. If you find that the moose has " yarded," 
that is to say, fed, and you can come across evi- 
dences of his presence not more than a couple of 
days or so old, you make up your mind to hunt 
that particular moose. 

The utmost caution and skill are necessary. 
The moose invariably travels down wind some 
little distance before beginning to feed, and then 
works his way up, browsing about at will in various 
directions. He also makes a circle down wind 
before lying down, so that, if you hit on a fresh 
track and then follow it, you are perfectly certain 
to start the animal without seeing him. You may 
follow a moose track a whole day, as I have done 
before now, and finally come across the place where 
you started him, and then discover that you had 
passed within fifty yards of that spot early in the 
morning, the animal having made a large circuit 
and lain down close to his tracks. The principle, 
therefore, that the hunter has to go upon is, to 



140 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

keep making small semicircles down wind so as to 
constantly cut the tracks and yet keep the animal 
always to windward of him. Having come across 
a track and made up your mind whether it is 
pretty fresh, whether the beast is a large one 
worth following, and whether it is settled down 
and feeding quietly, you will not follow the track, 
but go down wind and then gradually work up 
wind again till you cut the tracks a second time. 
Then you must make out whether the tracks are 
fresher or older than the former, whether they 
are tracks of the same moose or those of another, 
and leave them again and work up, and cut them 
a third time ; and so you go on gradually, always 
trimming down wind and edging up wind again, 
until, finally, you have quartered the whole 
ground. 

Perhaps the moose is feeding upon a hardwood 
ridge of beech and maples of, say, two or three 
miles in length and a quarter of a mile in width. 
Every square yard you must make good in the way 
I have endeavoured to describe, before you pro- 
ceed to go up to the moose. At length, by dint 
of great perseverance and caution, you will have 
so far covered the ground that you will know the 
animal must be in some particular spot. Then 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 141 

comes the difficult moment. I may say at once 
that it is mere waste of time trying to creep except 
on a windy day, even with moccasins on ; and it 
is of no use at any time trying to creep a moose 
unless you are provided with soft leather mocca- 
sins. No human being can get within shot of a 
moose on a still day : the best time is when windy 
weather succeeds a heavy fall of rain. Then the 
ground is soft, the little twigs strewed about bend 
instead of breaking, and the noise of the wind in 
the trees deadens the sound of your footsteps. 
If the ground is dry, and there is not much wind, 
it is impossible to get near the game. When you 
have determined that the moose is somewhere 
handy — when you come across perfectly fresh 
indications of his presence — you proceed inch by 
inch ; you must not make the smallest noise ; the 
least crack of a dead branch or of a stick under 
foot will start the animal. Especially careful 
must you be that nothing taps against your gun- 
stock, or that you do not strike the barrel against 
a tree, for, naturally, any such unusual sound is 
far worse than the cracking of a stick. If, how- 
ever, you succeed in imitating the noiseless 
movements and footsteps of your Indian, you will 
probably be rewarded by seeing him presently 



142 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

make a " point " like a pointer dog. Every 
quivering fibre in his body proves his excitement. 
He will point out something dark to you among 
the trees. That dark mass is a moose, and you 
must fire at it without being too careful what part 
of the animal you are going to hit, for probably 
the moose has heard you and is only waiting a 
second before making up his mind to be off. 

Generally speaking, the second man sees the 
moose first. The leader is too much occupied in 
looking at the tracks — in seeing where he is going 
to put his foot down. The second man has only 
to tread carefully in the footsteps of the man 
preceding him, and is able to concentrate his 
attention more on looking about. The moment 
you spy or hear the animal you should imitate the 
call of a moose — first to attract the attention of 
the animal, which, if it has not smelt you, will 
probably stop a second to make sure what it is 
that has frightened him ; secondly, to let the 
Indian in front know that the game is on foot. 
Moose-creeping is an exceedingly difficult and 
exciting pastime. It requires all a man's patience, 
for, of course, you may travel day after day in this 
way without finding any traces of deer. To the 
novice it is not interesting, for, apparently, the 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 143 

Indian wanders aimlessly about the woods without 
any particular object. When you come to under- 
stand the motive for every twist and turn he 
makes, and appreciate the science he is displaying, 
it becomes one of the most fascinating pursuits 
in which the sportsman can indulge.^* 

Sometimes one may be in good luck and come 
across a moose in some glade or " interval," the 
result of the labours of former generations of 
beavers. An " interval " is the local term for 
natural meadows, which are frequently found 
along the margins of streams. Beavers have done 
great and useful work in all these countries. The 
evidences of their labours have far outlived the 
work of aboriginal man. They dam up little 
streams and form shallow lakes and ponds. Trees 
fall in and decay ; the ponds get choked with 
vegetation, fill up, and are turned into natural 
meadows of great value to the settler. Beavers 
have played an important part in rendering these 
savage countries fit for the habitation of civilised 
man. 

The moose may also be run down in winter 
time on snow-shoes. This may be called partly 
a legitimate, and partly an illegitimate, mode of 
killing the animal. If the snow is not very deep, 



144 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

the moose can travel, and to come up with him 
requires immense endurance on the part of a man, 
but no skill except that involved in the art of 
running on snow-shoes. You simply start the 
animal and follow after him for a day, or some- 
times two or three days, when you come up with 
him and walk as close as you like and shoot him. 

If the snow lies very deep in early spring, moose 
may be slaughtered with ease. The sun thaws the 
surface, which freezes up again at night and forms 
an icy crust strong enough to support a man on 
snow-shoes, or a dog, but not nearly strong enough 
to support a moose. Then they can be run down 
without trouble. You find your moose and start 
a dog after him. The unfortunate moose flounders 
helplessly in the snow, cutting his legs to pieces, 
and in a very short time becomes exhausted, and 
you can walk up to him, knock him on the head 
with an axe, or stick him with a knife, as you think 
best. Hundreds and hundreds of moose have been 
slaughtered in this scandalous manner for their 
hides alone. The settlers also dig pits for them 
and snare them, both of which practices, I need 
hardly say, are most nefarious. There is nothing 
sportsmanlike about them, and they involve waste 
of good meat, because, unless a man looks to the 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 145 

snare every day (which these men never do), he 
runs the chance of catching a moose and finding 
the carcass unfit for food when he revisits the 
place. I shall not describe the method of snaring 
a moose, for fear some of you gentlemen might be 
tempted to practise it, or lest it might be supposed 
for a moment that I had ever done such a wicked 
thing myself. 

Many men prefer caribou-hunting to moose- 
hunting, and I am not sure that they are not right. 
The American caribou is, I believe, identical with 
the reindeer of Europe, though the American 
animal grows to a much larger size and the males 
carry far finer horns. The does have small horns 
also. I believe the caribou is the only species of 
deer marked by that peculiarity. Caribou are very 
fond of getting out on the lakes as soon as the ice 
will bear, and feeding round the shores. They 
feed entirely on moss and lichens, principally on the 
long grey moss, locally known as " old men's 
beards," which hangs in graceful festoons from the 
branches of the pines, and on the beautiful purple 
and cream-coloured caribou-moss that covers the 
barrens. They are not very shy animals, and will 
venture close to lumber camps to feed on the moss 
which grows most luxuriantly on the tops of the 



146 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

pines which the axe-men have felled. Caribou can- 
not be run down, and the settlers rarely go after 
them. They must be stalked on the barrens and 
lakes, or crept up to in the woods, precisely in the 
same manner as the moose. 

Such is a brief outline of some Canadian sports. 
Life in the woods need not be devoted entirely to 
hunting, but can be varied to a great extent by 
fishing and trapping. The streams and lakes teem 
with trout, and the finest salmon-fishing in the 
world is to be found in New Brunswick and on the 
north shore of the gulf. In Lower Canada there 
is still a good deal of fur to be found. In New 
Brunswick and Nova Scotia beavers are almost 
extinct, and marten, mink, lynx, otter, and other 
valuable fur-bearing animals are comparatively 
scarce. It would be hard, I think, for a man to 
spend a holiday more pleasantly and beneficially 
than in the Canadian woods. Hunting leads him 
into beautiful scenery ; his method of life induces 
a due contemplation of nature, and tends to whole- 
some thought. He has not much opportunity for 
improving his mind with literature, but he can 
read out of the great book of Nature and find " books 
in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good 
in everything." If he has his eyes and ears open, 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 147 

he cannot fail to take notice of many interesting 
circumstances and phenomena ; and if he has any 
knowledge of natural history, every moment of the 
day must be suggesting something new and inter- 
esting to him. A strange scene, for example, 
which once came within my observation, com- 
pletely puzzled me at the time, and has done so 
ever since. I was in Nova Scotia in the fall, when 
one day my Indian told me that in a lake close by 
all the rocks were moving out of the water, a cir- 
cumstance which I thought not a little strange. 
However, I went to look at the unheard-of spec- 
tacle, and sure enough there were the rocks appar- 
ently all moving out of the water on to dry land. 
The lake is of considerable extent, but shallow, and 
full of great masses of rock. Many of these masses 
appear to have travelled right out of the lake, and 
are now high and dry, some fifteen yards above the 
margin of the water. They have ploughed deep 
and regularly defined channels for themselves. 
You may see them of all sizes, from blocks of, say, 
roughly speaking, six or eight feet in diameter, 
down to stones which a man could lift. Moreover, 
you find them in various stages of progress, some 
a hundred yards or more from shore and apparently 
just beginning to move ; others half-way to their 



148 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

destination, and others again, as I have said, high 
and dry above the water. In all cases there is a 
distinct groove or furrow which the rock has clearly 
ploughed for itself. I noticed one particularly 
good specimen, an enormous block which lay some 
yards above high-water mark. The earth and 
stones were heaped up in front of it to a height of 
three or four feet. There was a deep furrow, the 
exact breadth of the block, leading down directly 
from it into the lake, and extending till it was 
hidden from my sight by the depth of the water. 
Loose stones and pebbles were piled up on each 
side of this groove in a regular clearly defined line. 
I thought at first that from some cause or other the 
smaller stones, pebbles, and sand had been dragged 
down from above, and consequently had piled 
themselves up in front of all the large rocks too 
heavy to be moved, and had left a vacant space or 
furrow behind the rocks. But if that had been the 
case, the drift of moving material would of course 
have joined together again in the space of a few 
yards behind the fixed rocks. On the contrary, 
these grooves or furrows remained the same width 
throughout their entire length, and have, I think, 
undoubtedly been caused by the rock forcing its 
way up through the loose shingle and stones which 



MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 149 

compose the bed of the lake. What power has set 
these rocks in motion it is difficult to decide. The 
action of ice is the only thing that might explain 
it ; but how ice could exert itself in that special 
manner, and why, if ice is the cause of it, it does 
not manifest that tendency in every lake in every 
part of the world, I do not pretend to comprehend. 

My attention having been once directed to this, 
I noticed it in various other lakes. Unfortunately 
my Indian only mentioned it to me a day or two 
before I left the woods. I had not time, therefore, 
to make any accurate investigation into the sub- 
ject. I have mentioned this extraordinary phen- 
omenon to geologists and other scientific men, 
but have never been given any satisfactory explana- 
tion of it. In fact, the usual explanation was an 
assurance in polite language that I was a liar. 
Scientists hate to be puzzled. 

Even from the point of view of a traveller who 
cares not for field sports, Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick, and in fact all Canada, is a country full 
of interest. It is interesting for many reasons 
which I need not trouble you with, but especially 
so as showing the development of what in future 
will be a great nation. For whether in connection 
with this country, or as independent, or as joined 



ISO CANADIAN NIGHTS 

to the United States, or any portion of them, that 
vast region which is now called British North 
America will assuredly some day support the 
strongest, most powerful, and most masterful 
population on the continent of America. 



SHEEP-HUNTING IN THE 

MOUNTAINS 

OVIS MONTANA, locally and variously 
f called the mountain sheep, Big-horn, or 
Taye, is very closely allied to, if he is 
not identical with, Ovis argali, the wild sheep 
of Asia, and he is akin to the European Mouflon. 
He stands about as high as a black-tail deer, but 
is much thicker and more massively made in the 
body and limbs than the latter animal. His head 
resembles that of a domestic sheep, but it is larger 
and more powerful-looking, and, in the case of the 
male, it is surmounted by a huge pair of curving 
horns far longer than those that adorn the head 
of any civilised ram. Among these animals this 
ornament is not confined to the male sex, for 
the females also carry small horns. The hair is 
coarse, very thick and close, resembling that of 
the deer in texture, but bluer in colour over the 
greater portion of his body, with a peculiar ex- 
ception which makes him look as if he was in the 
habit of sitting down in the snow, and some stuck 



152 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

to him. He is a grand and noble-looking animal, 
viewed standing motionless on some jutting crag, 
or bounding with gigantic springs down a precipice 
that apparently could not afford a foothold to 
any living thing. 

Some years ago I doubted the existence of the 
mountain sheep. I classed him with the Gorgons, 
dragons, and unicorns. I had read about him in 
books, but in all my wanderings I had never seen 
one, not even a stuffed specimen except in the 
British Museum, and I had some doubts as to 
whether they were genuine, or had been got up 
after the manner of Barnum's mermaid ; neither 
had I come across any reliable man who had killed 
one. My doubts were, however, at length dis- 
pelled. One day, while hunting on the plains, the 
government scout of a neighbouring post told me 
he was certain that there were big-horns on a 
certain range of bluffs in Wyoming. I did not 
believe him in the least, but as a large party of us, 
including some soldiers, were going through from 
a post on the railway to one of the forts situated 
in that territory, and as we should have to pass 
through the bluffs, we determined to spend a few 
days there and to prospect for sheep. This same 
government scout was a considerable villain, and 



SHEEP-HUNTING 153 

got us into a nice mess. I don't know why it was, 
but the inhabitants of the " city " in the neigh- 
bourhood of the fort from which we had been 
hunting took it into their wise heads that neither 
my friend P. nor myself were likely ever to revisit 
that region, and that therefore it was expedient 
to pillage, squeeze, and skin us completely before 
we got away. They had laid their plans pretty 
well. The scout arranged with a worthy citizen 
from whom we had hired some horses that at the 
last moment he should put in a most exorbitant 
claim for damage done to his horses. Accordingly, 
after the ambulance that had conveyed us to the 
station had returned to the fort, and while we 
were waiting quietly at the hotel for the train, it 
being then about eleven o'clock at night, we were 
politely but firmly requested to pay a sum for 
damage done to the team, greatly exceeding the 
whole value of both horses and wagon put to- 
gether, and, at the same moment, an attachment 
was placed upon our luggage. We were in a nice 
fix. We had to leave by that night's train, for 
there was but one train a day, and the party we 
were to join were impatiently waiting for us at 

S , a station some distance down the line, and 

expected to leave the next day, the moment the 



iS4 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

train got in. Fortunately the cars were three or 
four hours late, which gave us time to do some- 
thing. We got a buggy, drove off to the residence 
of an attorney, who was recommended to us by 
the hotel proprietor for his strict honesty, woke 
him up, turned him out of bed, narrated the 
circumstances, lugged him down to the station, 
paid the money into court, got the attachment 
off our luggage, and started triumphantly by the 
train. I never found out what became of our case, 
but I need scarcely say we never saw any of our 
money again. Where it went to I do not know ; 
probably it went, in the words of the late Mr. 
James Fisk, " where the woodbine twineth " ; at 
any rate I am pretty sure that a very small pro- 
portion of it, if any, found its way into the pockets 
of the two conspirators — the scout and the owner 
of the horses. 

On arriving at the little town of S we found 

the party were not ready, and we were com- 
pelled to wait there some days, a period of inac- 
tivity which proved fatal to our scout. S was 

at that time inhabited by a great many card- 
sharpers and gentlemen of that and kindred 
persuasions, and a few railway employes. The 
small military post is situated some little distance 



SHEEP-HUNTING 155 

outside the town. The day after our arrival a 
carpenter who had just completed a building 
contract somewhere, and who was overflowing 
with money and good-nature, came back to the 
town and proceeded to " treat," with the result 
that in a few hours the city was mad drunk, and 

remained so for a considerable time. P and 

I dined that night at the barracks, and by the 
time we returned to the town the orgy was at 
its height. The men were simply wild, raving 
drunk, drunk with the vilest of whisky, and 
nobody knows how vile and how horrible in its 
consequences whisky can be until he has tasted 
a sample of the kind of stuff that is, or used to be, 
concocted at many of those little out-of-the-way 
frontier towns. They were yelling, laughing, roar- 
ing, fighting, exploding rifles and firing off revolvers 
promiscuously all over the place. They intended 
it as a feu de joie no doubt, but as they loaded 
with ball cartridge, and were too magnanimous 
to take the petty precaution of firing in the air, 

it did not strike P and me exactly in that 

light. In fact it appeared anything but a joyful 
proceeding to us, and considering that discretion, 
m such a case, was undoubtedly the better part of 
valour r we made a wide circle out of the line of 



156 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

fire until we gained the shelter of a long line of 
trucks, and under their friendly cover crept up to 
the hotel at the railway station, like a couple of 
malefactors escaping from a hot pursuit. Male- 
factors in fact we soon found ourselves to be, for 
when we reached the hotel we discovered all our 
baggage piled up in a heap in the centre of the 
room, with the sheriff drunk, and in his shirt- 
sleeves, seated on it, attended by a judge and the 
sub-sheriff, both also the better — or worse — for 
whisky. It was fortunate that we arrived when 
we did. The sheriff or sub-sheriff, I forget which, 
had assaulted my servant in the most cowardly, 
brutal manner. The man had refused, and very 
properly refused, to separate my property from 
a lot of baggage belonging to other people, and 
the drunken representative of the law drew two 
pistols upon him, knocked him down, kicked him, 
threatened to blow his bad-worded brains out, 
and likely enough would have done so but for the 
man's wonderful command of himself and quiet 
courage. 

After some little difficulty we found out what 
was the matter. It appeared that our government 
scout, under the influence of bad whisky, had taken 
it into his head to try the attachment dodge over 



SHEEP-HUNTING 157 

again. Accordingly, during our absence at the 
barracks, he trumped up a most ridiculous charge, 
claiming five dollars a day wages from us during 
the whole time he was out on an expedition from 

Fort , which we had accompanied. He was 

receiving government pay, was detailed for duty 
with the expedition in his capacity of government 
scout, and was allowed by the officer in command 
to go out hunting with us as a matter of courtesy 
and kindness to us, and because he knew the country 
better than anyone else. The man was anxious to 
go, and was very pleased and perfectly satisfied with 
the liberal present we made him at the termination 
of the hunt. The charge was too preposterous to 
be sustained, but there was no use in representing 
the injustice and absurd nature of it, as the civil 
authorities and legal functionaries in the town were 
in the swim, and, if they had not been, were too 
drunk to listen to reason. At first the captors of 
our baggage were very offensive, and things looked 

somewhat ugly ; but a remark of P quite 

altered the aspect of affairs. He asked the sheriff, 
with a plaintive air of humble submission, whether 
he would not allow us the use of one small article 
of baggage, namely, a five-gallon keg of whisky. 
This request seemed somehow to tickle the fancies 



158 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

of the officials, for they allowed us to take possession 
of the keg, and becoming more civil and communi- 
cative, told us that either we must pay the money 
claimed, or lose our baggage, or get two well-to-do 
respectable citizens to go security for the amount. 
The hotel proprietor and other gentlemen were 
kind enough to do this for us, and the sheriffs then 
condescended to give over our baggage and vacate 
our rooms. The shouting and the riot went on all 
night, and I am bound to say that I was not very 

sorry to leave S . The impression it made 

upon me was that it was not a nice place for a quiet 
inoffensive man to live in, especially if he had any 
property of any kind. Of course we then and there 
discharged our scout. He applied to the officer 

commanding at S to pay his expenses back to 

Fort , which that officer politely declined to do, 

and our friend had to make his way back as best he 
could. He lost his place, and that was the last I 
heard of him. We subsequently heard that the 
sheriff also came to an untimely end. It seems he 
had a little unpleasantness with some gentleman of 
the town, and, happening one night to see his friend 
through a window seated with his back towards 
him, and thinking that the opportunity of settling 
the difference between them was too good to be 



SHEEP-HUNTING 159 

lost, he fired at the man, shot him through the back, 
and killed him. In consequence of this the sheriff 
lost his appointment, and, if report be true, what 
he probably thought of still greater importance, 
his life. The whole town also was thoroughly 
purged. Detectives were sent down, the card- 
sharpers were hunted out of the place, the ring of 
villains who administered so-called law and justice 

was broken up, and I believe S has ever since 

been as peaceable a place as a man need wish to see 
anywhere. So possibly our experience, which was 
decidedly disagreeable to us personally, resulted to 

the general welfare of the commnuity at S . 

After this episode we met with no further delays, 
and the next morning we started on our way to 

Fort . 

A very pleasant time we had, skirting the base 
of the hills, following the old emigrant track to 
Utah. The month was December, the weather 
fine and open, and game — that is, deer and antelope 
— abundant, with an occasional buffalo for a change. 
One day I went out alone on foot to look for a deer. 
I had not gone very far walking along a ridge, keep- 
ing a sharp look-out on either side, before I espied 
a long way off a party of five or six deer. Taking 
care to keep myself concealed, I got up within good 



160 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

view and took a spy at them with my field-glasses, 
to see if there was a good head among the gang. 
There they were — one, two, three, four, five deer, 
feeding quietly, but I could not make out any 
antlers among them. Curious-looking deer, too, I 
thought to myself, and screwed the glasses in a 
little, and steadied myself for a better look. Well, 
I thought, there is certainly an unusual appearance 
about them, something odd in the colour, some- 
thing strange in the shape. Of a sudden a thought 
that felt red-hot rushed through me — what if they 
should be sheep ! " By Jove ! they are sheep," 
I exclaimed, as one moved a little into a better 
light — " two big rams, just look at their horns," 
and three small ones. I declare I felt as excited as 
if I had discovered a new animal or attained the 
North Pole. I was so nervous I could not do any- 
thing for a few minutes, but after a while set to 
work in fear and trembling to execute a scientific 
stalk. If those sheep had been the last specimens 
of their race remaining on earth, I could not have 
been more anxious to get a fair shot at them. It 
was a difficult country, and I had a hard climb and 
an anxious time of it, but at last I got into a position 
that I felt sure would enable me to creep up within 
range. Alas ! I was doomed to awful disappoint- 



SHEEP-HUNTING 161 

ment that day. Two others of the party were out 
shooting at coyotes, birds, anything they came 
across ; and when after infinite trouble I had 
crawled up within shooting distance of the sheep, 
and was pulling myself together and settling myself 
for the fatal moment, they fired a shot, started the 
game, and snatched the victory from out of my very 
grasp, and I had all my labour to begin over again. 
To make a long story short, I made three stalks on 
those sheep, for they were unaccustomed to the 
sound of firearms, and did not run far, and three 
times the same thing happened, and I was baulked 
by the same unlucky cause. On the third occasion, 
however, the sheep were seriously scared, and ran 
so far that, as it was getting late, I was obliged to 
leave them, and with a very heavy heart set a gloomy 
face towards home. On my way over a high ridge I 
noticed something curious away out on the plains 
near a bend of the Platte, and with the glasses made 
out a lot of tents or Indian tepees, I could not de- 
termine which. We had a consultation about it in 
camp that evening, and decided that, as there were 
no Indians in the neighbourhood, what I saw must 
have been the tents of a company of soldiers we 
expected to meet us from the fort. 

The next morning my hunting companion, my 



162 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

Scotch gillie Sandie, and I, started oft' to take up 
the trail of the sheep. We galloped along till 
opposite the place where I had last seen them, 
picketed our horses, and commenced climbing the 
hills. We had not gone twenty yards when we 
saw something moving in the far distance. Out 
with the glasses ! Perhaps it is one of the sheep, 
I thought. " Hallo ! " I cried, amid general con- 
sternation, " it is a man." Another good look. 
" No, it is a woman." " No, a man in a blanket. 
An Indian ! " Without another word, down we 
went flat as serpents in the long grass, crawled 
back to our horses, and then helter-skelter back 
to camp as hard as we could go. We found camp 
in a bustle, men with their carbines in their hands 
saddling up, tents being taken down, and a lot of 
ugly-looking savages sitting about three or four 
hundred yards off on a rock, with their blankets 
drawn up to their noses, looking on, while several 
more noble redskins were hovering about in the dis- 
tance. It did not look pleasant. More and more 
Indians kept arriving, some with the carcasses 
of deer on their saddles — the villains ! what right 
had they to come marauding on our hunting 
grounds ? — and after a while a lot of them, getting 
bold, came into camp, making friendly signs, 



SHEEP-HUNTING 163 

shook hands, and sat down and smoked with us. 
There was one old fellow who spoke a few words 
of English and acted as interpreter ; he was 
evidently the comic man of the party, and quite 
a character in his way. He was a queer, wizened, 
dried-up looking specimen of humanity, clothed in 
multitudinous rags of ancient flannel shirt, tattered 
blanket, and dilapidated deerskin leggings. He 
rode a pony as ancient, as lean, and as ragged as 
himself, and he had a lot of old rusty beaver-traps, 
and pots, and pans, and kettles, and in fact appa- 
rently all his household goods distributed over 
the persons of himself and his steed, and rattling, 
clanging, and jingling whenever he moved. He 
made frequent remarks in Indian — jokes, I pre- 
sume, or remarks on our personal appearance, for 
they were received with shouts of laughter — and 
he was equally voluble in English, though his 
knowledge of that language was apparently limited, 
for he kept on informing us that " heap of Sioux 
coming, heap wagon, white men with them." 
They all professed great friendship, but they were 
so very saucy and bumptious, and tried so perti- 
naciously to steal everything that they could lay 
their hands on, that we concluded to clear out as 
speedily as possible, and accordingly we struck 



164 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

tents, bundled everything into the wagons, and 
left with, as far as I am concerned, no amiable 
feelings towards the " cut off " band of Sioux. I 
am generally rather partial to Indians, but I confess 
on this occasion I felt fully prepared to endorse 
the opinion of the gentleman who said that " all 
Indians were pison." In the first place this same 
" cut off " band of Sioux had only a short time 
before massacred between eighty and ninety Paw- 
nee women and children. They came upon the 
camp while all the men were out running buffalo, 
surrounded it, and killed every human being in 
the place. It may be said that it was " their 
nature so to do," the Pawnees and the Sioux being 
hereditary foes, but at any rate I defy anyone to 
show that they had the slightest right to come 
rampaging about the bluffs, turning us out of camp, 
spoiling our hunting, and destroying our chance of 
getting a sheep. 

Late in the evening after dark we arrived at a 
little solitary cattle-ranch tended by one man. 
He was standing at the door when we rode up, 
looking very uneasy and peering through the 
darkness, but he brightened up considerably when 
he saw we were white men. He was very hospi- 
table. " Walk in, boys," he said, " walk right in 



SHEEP-HUNTING 165 

and sit down. We ain't much ' heeled ' * for 
chairs, I guess, but you must make yourselves 
as comfortable as you can." And so we sat down 
and had a long talk with him about cattle and 
hunting and Indians, and the lonely dangerous 
life he led, and various other congenial topics of a 
similar nature. We camped that night close to 
the ranch, and on the following morning made 
another excursion into the hills in the hope of 
crossing the tracks of the sheep ; but finding that 
we were in the position of little Bo-peep, and that 
like her we had lost our sheep and could not tell 
where to find them, and not having sufficient 
leisure to adopt the policy of masterly inactivity 
recommended to that young lady — a policy which, 
moreover, we were forced to recognise would have 
proved unavailing in our case, since we were 
anxious only about the heads and horns of the 
animals, and the position of their tails was a matter 
of indifference to us in the event of their coming 
home — and perceiving that the Indians had run 
through the whole district and had scared the 
game out of it, we very reluctantly abandoned the 

1 To be " heeled" signifies in Western phraseology to be prepared for, 
or provided with, anything. The term is borrowed from the cockpit ; a 
bird is said to be heeled when his spurs are put on and he is ready for 
the fight. 



1 66 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

sheep, and struck out in a straight line for our 
destination. 

We had to travel through an ugly monotonous 
country consisting of flat dried-up plains broken 
by occasional lines of clay bluffs. Herbage was 
scarce, fuel still scarcer, and as we had no time for 
hunting even if the country had been favourable 
for the chase, we thought it best to shorten the 
journey as much as possible. Accordingly when 
we got within two or three days' march of the 
fort, four of us determined to make a push for it 
and try to accomplish the distance, some seventy 
miles or so, in one day. We travelled fast, 
" loping " along most of the way, without seeing 
sign of man or beast until late in the afternoon, 
when we espied two men galloping towards us. 
As soon as they caught sight of us they pulled up, 
then came on a little further, stopped again, 
turned round, and galloped off a short distance, 
then stopped again, and finally turned out of the 
track, pushed their horses a little way up the 
hill-side, and awaited us. Their manners puzzled 
us somewhat, but as they were only two, while 
we were four, we felt exceedingly courageous and 
cantered merrily on. As soon as we got near 
they moved down the hill towards us, and we 



SHEEP-HUNTING 167 

pulled up to see what they wanted. " Good- 
evening, boys," said J ; " can you tell us how 

far it is into the fort, and what on earth were you 
doing up the hill there ? " " Well, I never did," 
answered one of the men ; " darned if we did not 
take you fellers for Indians. What were we doing 

up the hill ? What in the were you doing 

scooting over the prairie on a dead jump like that 
for ? We made sure you were Indians, did not 
we, Jim ? and we kinder thought we would have a 
better show up on the high grounds. How far is 
it to the fort ? Well, if you keep up that kind 

of to split gait it won't take you long to git 

there, I guess ; anyhow, you'll be in soon after 
dark. Been hunting, I expect, haven't you ? 
You did not happen to see any steers down this 
way as you came along, did you ? We lost some 
of ours a couple of days ago, and can't get track 
of them anywhere. Did you see no Indians 
either ? No ! Well, that's kinder strange too. 
You had better keep your eyes skinned, there's 
plenty of 'em around, and they are getting mighty 

sarcy too. Why, Dr. drove out in his buggy 

a few miles from the fort the other day to meet 
some gentlemen he was expecting — likely you're 
the party, I expect — and darned if a bunch of 



168 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

Indians did not come across him and chased him 
right back into the fort, and a mighty near thing 
it was too, I tell you. Well, good-evening. I 
guess we won't go any further this way, Jim, 
since they haven't seen any sign of those steers." 
And so with mutual good-nights we parted, they 
to pick a nice place to camp for the night, and we 
to pursue our way to the fort. 

It was long after dark when we got in, and, after 

saying good-night to Lieut. , who went off to 

look up his friends, at length hitched up our tired 

hoises at Dr. 's door, and after knocking for 

admittance in vain walked in and sat down in the 
parlour to await the arrival of our host. After 
a few anxious minutes — for we were getting very 
hungry, not to say thirsty and tired, and had been 
consoling ourselves during the last few wearisome 
hours of darkness with anticipations of an hospi- 
table welcome — a step resounded in the wooden 
passage, the door opened, and a gentleman entered 
the room, and, after scrutinising us with a somewhat 
astonished gaze, said, " Well, men, what do you 

want ? " " We were looking for Dr. ," I 

timidly answered. " Perhaps you could tell us — " 
" That's all right," he interrupted ; " I am 
Dr. . What's the matter ? what do you 



SHEEP-HUNTING 169 

want with me ? " " Oh ! " I said, feeling rather 
aggrieved at this reception, " I beg your pardon for 
intruding. We don't want anything. We thought 

probably you were expecting us. General 

said he would write, and so we thought we 
would call, and — " " Why, my dear sir, I am 
most delighted to see you, most happy to make 
your acquaintance," cried the Doctor, shaking 
hands violently. " Why did you not say who you 
were ? won't you introduce me to your friends ? 
Expecting you, why of course I have been expecting 
you this ever so long, began to think you must 
have been jumped by Indians. By Jove, I came 
pretty near losing my scalp a couple of days ago. 
I went out for a drive in the afternoon, thinking 
I might meet you, and six of those infernal Sioux 
ran right on top of me and chased me clean up to 
the fort. If I had not had a pretty good horse, 
I should have been in a tight place, I can tell you, 
but there are not many Indian ponies that can 
get near the mare I was driving. She is a beauty. 
I must take you out for a drive to-morrow (No, 
I thank you, thinks I, not any for me. I don't 
want to be chased round Wyoming in a buggy by 
a parcel of Sioux Indians). In the meantime you 
are pretty hungry, I expect. What ! come in all 



170 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

the way from the big bend, did you, you don't say. 
Well, we will soon settle that all right ; supper 
will be ready in five minutes. In the meantime 
don't you think just a little — eh ? yes, I think so, 
from a purely medical point of view, I should 
certainly recommend it," and the Doctor left the 
room, to reappear in a minute preceded by a 
pleasant tinkling of spoons and glasses. " How ? ' : 
said the doctor, and " how " we replied in chorus, 
replacing our empty goblets on the table, and in a 
few minutes four hungry individuals were seated 
round the table, busily engaged in spoiling appe- 
tites engendered by a long day's ride. 

Some time after I asked the Doctor, who proved 
to be not only a most hospitable host but also a 
most charming and agreeable companion, why he 
appeared so much astonished and in fact disgusted 
at our first appearance. " Well," he said, " you 
must not be offended, you know, but really you 
did look the most horrid set of scoundrels ; upon 
my word you were the very roughest-looking 
crowd I have seen since I came out west. I 
thought at first that some one of the cattle-boys 
had met with some accident, broken his leg or 
something, but when you all stood up, and there 
was evidently nothing the matter with any of you, 



SHEEP-HUNTING 171 

I was puzzled. I could not make out who you 
were or what you wanted, anyhow." I could not 
dispute the accuracy of the Doctor's first estimate 
of our social status and moral character. Our 
countenances, scarred by the cutting wind, 
blistered and peeled by the rays of a bright 
winter's sun reflected from dazzling snow or the 
almost equally white surface of alkaline plains, 
were partially concealed by a three weeks' growth 
of stubbly beard, and were deeply engrained with 
the black impalpable powder swept from off the 
burned prairie by fierce gales. Our hands were 
grimy, our clothes blood-besmirched and dirty, our 
moccasins in holes, our headgear misshapen — for 
constantly sleeping in a felt hat does not improve 
its appearance or add elegance to its form ; we 
were tired and travel-stained, and I have no doubt 
we did look a most disreputable gang. After all, 
it is the clothes that make the man. One reads 
in books of gifted individuals — superior persons, 
in whose uncontaminated veins courses the bluest 
Norman blood — who are supposed to present a 
dignified and gentlemanlike appearance under all 
circumstances ; but one does not often come 
across them in real life. The gentility of most 
men is contained in their shirt collars. The 



172 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

simple innocence of a narrow band of white un- 
dented linen invests the whole figure with an air 
that nothing else can impart. Remove it, supply 
its place with a ragged woollen muffler or kerchief 
of ancient date, and the effect is marvellous and 
sad. If you want to destroy an aristocracy, cut 
off their collars, not their heads. Of course there 
are some men who bear the change better than 
others. So there are some individuals among all 
those classes that lead rough, wild, out-of-door 
lives, such as hunters, trappers, miners, cattle 
men, lumber men, &c, who look more refined and 
neater than their fellows, and these men, being to 
the manner born, will look a great deal more like 
gentlemen than almost any gentleman who has 
taken to the wild life for a while. A few weeks in 
the wilderness will transform most high-bred 
looking men, and give them the appearance of 
atrocious villains of the deepest dye. You need 
not smile, you fellows, I really have not any 
personal feeling in this matter. It is true that 
my appearance and probable circumstances in life 
have been the subject of varied criticism and 
frequent remarks. I have had many trades, occu- 
pations, and missions in life attributed to me, all 
very wide of the mark, but none of them incom- 



SHEEP-HUNTING 173 

patible with a decent and honourable existence. 
Under these circumstances I have no ground of 
complaint, seeing that I have but little faith in 
the novelist's theory of the indestructibility of a 
gentlemanlike appearance, but believe greatly in 
the saving qualities of a shirt collar ; and hold that 
without that mystic ring, if you take a lot of men 
from different classes, mix them up, dress them 
in the same rough clothes, and see that they are 
all equally unkempt, unshaven, and unclean, you 
will find it very hard to separate them correctly 
again. 

For the next three days we were busily engaged, 
in " paying visits " during the first two, and in 
recuperating our shattered constitutions on the 
third. Then Christmas was close at hand, and 
we concluded to celebrate that festival in the 
fort, so that it was not until ten days or a fortnight 
after our arrival that we sallied out on a hunting 
expedition into the Black Hills. Game proved 
tolerably abundant, but the weather was awfully 
cold, too cold for pleasure. If I may here be 
allowed to offer one word of advice to hunters, I 
would say, Don't go out on the plains in the 
northern and middle territories and states in the 
depth of winter ; the game is not worth the 



174 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

candle. Up to about Christmas you are safe 
enough ; you will experience spells of cold weather, 
but nothing to hurt, up to that time ; but after 
the end of December you may be caught at any 
moment in a cold snap, lasting several days, when 
the thermometer will go down very low, and the 
intense cold be accompanied by violent cruel gales 
of wind. Such storms are dangerous, and may 
result in loss of limb or even of life to the 
traveller whose camp is in an exposed position. 
Among the hills and in the forest you are right 
enough at all times, for it is your own fault, or 
the fault of the men with you, if you cannot make 
yourself comfortable in any weather where fuel 
and shelter can be obtained. Nothing worthy of 
note occurred during this expedition except a 
little misunderstanding which came near proving 
inconvenient to one of the party. As one of the 
officers from the fort and I were returning to 
camp one evening, making our way through a 
thick growth of brush and cotton-wood trees that 
fringed a little stream, we happened to start one 
of those huge prairie hares commonly called 
jack-rabbits. We fired at him, as we were close 
to the camp and there was no danger of scaring 
better game, and then slid off our horses and 



SHEEP-HUNTING 175 

commenced peering and poking about among the 
bushes to try and get another shot. We had fired 
two or three more unsuccessful shots, when we 
broke suddenly into a little open glade, in full 
view of a small log shanty. We were vastly 
astonished, for we did not know there was a 
human habitation within miles and miles of us, 
and to add to our dismay an excited German 
sprang up in the open doorway and advanced to 
us, shouting and gesticulating in the wildest 
manner. " Mein Gott ! " he cried, " I am so 
glad I did not shoot. Oh, mein Gott, I am so 
glad. I thought the Indians were on me this 
time sure : what for you fire into mein house ? 
Three or four bullets come right slam into mein 
house, I tell you. I was lying down behind a 
flour-sack, and could see you peeping about in the 
bush like so many Indian thieves. I got a beauti- 
ful sight on that little fellow in the deerskin shirt, 
and was shoost about to pull when you come out 
into the open, and I saw you were white men. 
He'd have gone up anyhow, I tell you. I had a 
sure thing on him." It was no wonder the poor 
man was alarmed, for in fact some of our bullets 
had by bad luck gone right into his shanty through 
the open door. He had made all his preparations, 



176 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

had thrown down two sacks of flour across the 
doorway, and was lying down behind them, with 
his finger pressing the trigger of a sixteen-shooter 
repeating rifle when we burst out of the bush and 
revealed ourselves just in time. The consequences 
might have been serious, if not they would have 
been comical, for if he had fired we should have 
taken him for Indians, and should have got into 
cover and returned the fire ; and our friends, 
hearing an unusual amount of shooting close to 
the camp, would have come to our assistance, 
and a little battle all about nothing would have 
ensued. 

We enjoyed pretty fair sport during this hunt, 
and got a good many deer and two sheep, but the 
latter were small young rams, and it was not until 
I had killed a large specimen some time later that 
I quite forgave the " cut off " band of Sioux for 
disturbing us in the bluffs. 

Indians are a great nuisance, more especially the 
Sioux, who roam over the whole breadth of the 
interior of the continent as far west as the Rocky 
Mountains, and eastward to the territories of their 
hereditary enemies, the Chippewas. How these 
two tribes can ever have fought together much I 
don't know, for a Sioux is entirely out of his element 



SHEEP-HUNTING 177 

off the plains, knows little of canoes, and hates to 
trust himself in the woods or among the mountains ; 
while the Chippewa is a fish out of water when 
away from his swamps, rivers, lakes, and woods. 
They are a fine tribe, the Chippewas, as far as my 
experience of them goes, and much to be preferred 
in every way to their roving, marauding, trouble- 
some neighbours on the plains. I think it is Wash- 
ington Irving who has somewhere (I forget where) 
unfavourably contrasted the Indian, half-breed, 
or French voyageur, " cowering in his canoe," with 
the bold adventurous hunters and trappers who 
career on their high-mettled steeds over the bound- 
less prairie. With all deference to Washington 
Irving, I do not think he could have had much 
actual experience in canoes, or he would not have 
found it necessary to " cower," nor would he have 
found travelling in a canoe conducive to a mean, 
melancholy, dispirited frame of mind, as is evi- 
denced by the fact that Canadian Indians and the 
Hudson Bay Company voyageurs and other half- 
breeds are about the most joyous, light-hearted 
people on the face of the earth. 

I made a very extensive acquaintance among 
mountain sheep afterwards in Estes Park in Color- 
ado, and on one occasion caught a young one alive. 

M 



178 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

I left the ranch just before grey dawn to take a 
solitary stroll round the margin of St. Mary's Lake, 
and on the slopes and spurs of sheep mountain, and 
to enjoy that most glorious spectacle, a sunrise 
among the mountains. I had also some hopes of 
picking up a sheep or deer. It is hard to imagine 
anything more beautiful than a summer sunrise in 
those regions. There is a curious effect in nature 
just before the break of day that is impossible to 
describe, but that I think all who have passed many 
nights under the stars will recognise. There comes 
a sort of strange uneasy feeling through the atmos- 
phere, a faint tremor as of cold air moves over the 
earth, as if Nature shivered in her sleep, grew 
restless, and half awoke. 

That sensation will be the first token of a great 
change at hand. Then the morning star shines out 
bright and strong, and the other constellations 
begin to fade. The highest peaks seem to approach 
one quickly, commence to look nearer, to stand out 
clearer and whiter than before. A faint, a very 
faint, light steals over them, a radiance deepening 
quickly into the beautiful colour of a fresh rose, 
deepening still, flushing, glowing, and spreading 
downwards, colouring the snow a most delicate 
pink, gilding with bright gold the yellow grass, 



SHEEP-HUNTING 179 

burnishing and shining like silver on ice and rock. 
Mists creep up the hillsides, grey in the valleys, pink 
on the tops, brooding sluggishly in heavy clouds 
among the lower masses of timber, gauzy, thin, 
transparent, and hanging in long wisps and shreds 
from the higher summits of the range. Of a sudden 
a bare naked crag, piercing the heavens, blazes into 
dazzling light, like a fiery beacon. Peak after peak 
answers the signal. The light flows down. The 
mists float up. Black darkness still reigns in the 
valleys, the eastern slopes are still wrapped in sleep, 
but the western hillsides are sparkling with the 
brightness of a white frost or dewdrops under a 
dazzling sun, and all the fells and peaks above them 
are bathed in light. There is nothing so beautiful 
as beautiful scenery, and it is never seen to better 
advantage than in the first hour of the dawn. 

It is not difficult, after several days' hard work 
hunting, to spend an idle day or two in such a scene, 
watching the face of nature ever changing under 
cloud and sunshine, calm and tempest. The eye 
never aches at the sight of lovely scenery, nor does 
the soul sadden. It is the one thing that never 
palls, with which neither mind nor body is ever 
weary. 
The love of hunting is a passion that leads a man 



180 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

into scenes of most picturesque beauty. The 
speckled trout allures him to lake and stream ; in 
pursuit of deer, he wanders through many a se- 
cluded valley, amid scenes of soft beauty, which 
otherwise he might never see. To find the " big- 
horn " he scales giddy precipices, and climbs to 
soaring peaks, and confronts nature face to face in 
her grandest, most terrific moods. He is with 
nature always, whether on foot, on horseback, or 
in his birch-bark canoe. 

Walking in the midst of such lovely scenery, and 
watching the day break in such infinite splendour, 
I must confess that I became somewhat careless as 
to my hunting, and stumbled right on top of a 
little band of sheep, feeding on the level ground, 
before I was aware of their presence. In fact I 
did not see them until they started. I fired, but 
without any effect, and set the hound, poor old 
Plunk, after them. 

They had got too good a start, and he could not 
come near them, but after a while I noticed a little 
sheep lagging behind. Thinking Plunk might over- 
take it, I started off best pace after him. It is 
no joke running over rough ground at an ele- 
vation of some 8000 feet on a blazing hot July 
morning in Colorado, and I puffed and blew 



SHEEP-HUNTING 181 

and " larded the lean earth " in the most generous 
manner. 

When I came up I found the sheep perched on a 
little pinnacle of rock, and the hound baying furi- 
ously below. Poor little beast, I pitied it. It was 
only about three months old, and it looked very 
forlorn ; it was very slightly wounded also, a fact 
which I did not know before. I went up to it and 
patted it, and the poor little creature did not seem 
much frightened, and did not mind my touching it 
a bit ; but it would not follow me. It was too 
much afraid of the dog, I fancy. I did not know 
what to do. I wanted to keep it alive, for a tame 
sheep is somewhat of a rarity. I was afraid to 
leave it alone while I went for a wagon, and I was 
afraid of leaving the hound to watch it, lest he 
should run in upon it and kill it during my ab- 
sence. So I concluded to pack it into the ranch 
on my back. A nice job I had of it. The little 
animal was as strong as a donkey, and kicked and 
walloped about all the time. It was as much as 
I could do to keep it on my shoulders. By that 
time the forenoon was far spent, and the sun was 
pouring down with tropical strength. I don't 
know which of us was most exhausted by the time 
we got to the house. However, I was none the 



1 82 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

worse, but the poor little sheep never recovered. 
He drank lots of milk, and seemed all right for the 
first day, but after that he pined away and died in 
three or four days. 

Running sheep with hounds is a good deal prac- 
tised in some places. I don't like it. It is a repre- 
hensible habit, and scares all the game out of the 
country. It is a very sure and easy way of killing 
sheep if you have a first-rate dog and the ground 
is suitable to the sport, but unless those two con- 
ditions are fulfilled the chance of success is small. 
Your hound must be very speedy and staunch, and 
accustomed to the business ; and the sheep must be 
found near some isolated pinnacle or crags of cliff. 
You creep up as near as you possibly can to the 
game, and then start the dog at them, yelling and 
hallooing, to scare them as much as possible, as soon 
as you perceive that they have caught sight of the 
hound. The sheep will run straight up the moun- 
tain, and will beat any dog in a short time ; but if 
the hound has got a good start, and if the ground 
has been pretty level at first, he will press them so 
hard that one or perhaps two or three of them will 
take refuge on the first precipitous cliff or crag they 
can find. If that happens to be an isolated rock so 
small that the dog can keep guard round the base of 



SHEEP-HUNTING 183 

it, he will keep the sheep at bay — " treed," as they 
say in Colorado — until his master comes up. But 
for one successful run you may make many un- 
successful ones. Nothing scares game so much as 
running them with dogs, and consequently it is a 
pastime that ought never to be pursued, or at any 
rate hardly ever, and then only when you can be 
quite certain of success. The place where I caught 
the little sheep was very favourable for running 
them. 

The water of St. Mary's Lake is strongly impreg- 
nated with alkali, and leaves a deposit of that sub- 
stance round the edge. The spot is in consequence 
much frequented by sheep, who, in common with 
all kinds of deer and cattle, are intensely fond of 
salt. In former days sheep used to come down 
nearly every morning to lick the alkali on the little 
plains surrounding the lake. The ground in the 
neighbourhood is level, with three or four quite 
detached rocks jutting out of it, and on one side you 
can get down pretty close to the plain without 
showing yourself. I remember one day that same 
summer we passed the lake, a party of four of us 
with a string of packhorses, on our way to pitch 
camp for a few days high up on Long's Peak for the 
purpose of hunting wapiti on the highest fells. I 



1 84 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

was riding behind when I heard Plunk barking 
furiously, and on galloping up found the cavalcade 
halted at a little distance, Plunk halfway up one of 
the masses of detached rock, barking vigorously, and 
every now and then making plunges towards a fine 
old patriarchal ram who stood on the top of the 
rock, and who, with feet placed closed together and 
head stooped, followed every movement of the dog, 
presenting his massive horns to him at every point 
of attack. It was a very pretty sight. In front lay 
a green grass-covered plain bounded by the little 
lake, vividly blue and sparkling under a summer 
breeze and the bright sun that shone on the white 
alkali that fringed its shores. On the far side of it 
the mountain rose, covered to the right with a thick 
growth of green young pine timber, but on the left 
burned and bare, and terminating in the great crags 
and cliffs of sheep mountain. In the foreground, 
piercing the green plain, rose a mass of red sand- 
stone crowned with the massive and stately form of 
the defiant ram, while the huge dun-coloured hound, 
bristling with rage, furiously bayed and rushed at 
him from below. The people at the ranch had 
roast mutton for dinner that night, and we had 
mutton chops for tea on Long's Peak. That was 
the only time I ever killed a sheep with a hound, 



SHEEP-HUNTING 185 

and it was a mere accident, for we ran across the 
sheep by chance. Plunk belonged to Mr. Evans, 
who at that time owned the ranch-house. He was 
the best dog for that kind of work I ever saw or 
heard of, for if he once " treed " a sheep he would 
hold him there for days. He got into many scrapes, 
poor beast ; he was so eager, he would follow sheep 
anywhere, and on one or two occasions got into 
positions from which he could not have extricated 
himself without human aid. And in that way he 
met his fate. He got after a band of sheep one 
day, and followed them away off out of sight and 
out of hearing. No distant note of baying came 
to the anxious ear of his master, who searched all 
that day for him fruitlessly till nightfall, and all the 
next day and many days equally in vain. Poor 
Plunk was never seen or heard of again. He must 
either have fallen over some cliff, or have jumped 
down upon some ledge from which he could not 
descend or ascend again, and there perished slowly 
and miserably of starvation. 

The mountain sheep is a magnificent animal, and 
the ram carries a splendid head. He is wild-looking 
and picturesque, and exactly suits the character of 
the country in which he is found. I know nothing 
finer in nature than the massive form of a big old 



1 86 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

ram standing on some jutting point of a precipitous 
cliff amidst the grandeur of the mountains which 
are his home. It requires a good deal of patience 
and perseverance to hunt the mountain sheep suc- 
cessfully. As a rule they are to be found on the 
highest peaks and the most inaccessible positions of 
the range, though in the rutting season, if you are 
fortunate enough to find a locality inhabited by 
sheep and undisturbed by man, they will come 
down and may be met with and killed with com- 
parative ease. To hunt the animal with success, 
you must have a tolerably accurate idea of his 
manners and customs. The mountain sheep in 
Colorado come down to the foothills in the early 
spring, and return with their lambs about a month 
or six weeks old in the month of June or July. The 
old rams stay up on the mountains, and seem to 
seek the highest crags for shelter, even during the 
terrible storms of winter. Of course the snow 
never lies on the more precipitous parts of the 
mountains, and there is plenty of long grass for 
them to feed upon, and they appear to prefer the 
shelter they obtain among the caves and caverns 
of the rocks to coming down lower on to more 
snow-encumbered regions, and seeking safety 
amongst the timber. They are very fond of alkali, 



SHEEP-HUNTING 187 

like all other animals, and will run great risks to get 
a lick of salt every now and then ; they will also 
come down to feed occasionally on little plains and 
parks at the foot of the mountains. 

I have shot many, many sheep at one spot close 
to the margin of a shallow brackish pond. Finding 
that they generally came down about eight or nine 
o'clock in the morning, I used to get there about 
seven, and sit down and wait patiently for them. 
I have seen them over and over again descend the 
mountain, skylarking among themselves, galloping 
down a few hundred yards and then stopping and 
looking out carefully all over the country. Finally 
they would descend to the pond, and, after some 
hesitation and a great deal of caution, would walk 
boldly out on the plain, and begin to lick the alkali 
and browse a little on the grass. 

They would stop down sometimes an hour or 
two if undisturbed, and I have often watched 
them simply to see what they would do. After a 
time they would scamper off again, butting each 
other with their heads in sport, and at last would 
clamber up the mountain-side and disappear. The 
great thing in sheep-hunting is to get above them ; 
it is no use whatever trying to stalk a big ram by 
endeavouring to get up to him from underneath, 



1 88 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

because he is certain to see you. The only chance, 
if you know where he is likely to be, is to climb up 
above him and work gradually down ; then you 
have a fair likelihood of coming upon him, for he 
is accustomed to look below for danger. 

It is labour lost to follow their tracks. There is 
a certain great old ram that I know of which 
nobody has been able to kill yet. I have never 
seen him, but I know the size of his foot 
accurately. 

I followed him all day once some years ago, 
and he fooled me beautifully. I started out alone 
about seven o'clock one winter's morning, and had 
not ridden more than three or four miles from the 
house in Estes Park when I struck a very large sheep 
track plainly visible in the snow. I followed it a 
little while, till it seemed to be so fresh that I dis- 
mounted, tied up my horse, and proceeded on foot. 
The track was gigantic, and as it led right in the 
direction of the habitation of this particular old 
ram, I knew it must be his foot ; so I determined 
to follow him all day if necessary on the chance of a 
shot. I left my bag and luncheon, took off my 
coat, and prepared myself for a long and arduous 
climb. 

As bad luck would have it, the sheep was travel- 



SHEEP-HUNTING 189 

ling along a very steep mountain side all covered 
with loose stones, and though I was in moccasins, 
which are the best wear for hunting, I could not 
move without making a noise, and I started my 
sheep. After walking about half an hour I came to 
the place where he had started, but followed on all 
the same, in the hope of getting sight of him, and 
presently came to another spot where he had stood 
and looked about him. He had no doubt caught 
sight of me, for he had started off on a dead jump 
straight down a very steep ravine, at least a 
thousand feet deep and equally precipitous on 
the other side. I could make out his tracks going 
down, but could not see anything of him, although 
I sat down and carefully examined the opposite face 
of the mountain with my glasses. So down I 
went, and presently struck his tracks again going 
up the other side. It was a terribly hard mountain 
to climb. It had once been clothed with a thick 
covering of pine trees which had all been burnt and 
blown down, and the ground was completely strewn 
with trunks of trees, smooth and slippery. I do not 
suppose that my foot touched the ground one- 
fourth of the distance, for I was obliged to walk 
along the trees, and hop and jump from one to the 
other, after the manner of a squirrel. Added to 



190 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

which inconvenience there was about a foot of snow 

on the ground, melted by the heat of the sun and 

frozen by the cold, so that a thick crust had 

formed, just strong enough to bear your weight 

about a second, then let you through plump to the 

ground. It was terrible ground to travel over, and 

it exhausted me, but I was in hopes it exhausted 

the sheep also, because the footprints began to be 

deeply dyed with blood, showing that the sheep 

was cutting himself with the crust on the snow. I 

followed and followed my sheep, now and then 

stopping to use my glass, because the tracks were 

so fresh that I fancied he ought to be in sight ; 

but I could not get a glimpse of him, and so 

imagining that he must be further off than I 

had supposed, I still followed the tracks till I got 

near the top of a mountain which forms a 

ridge or offshoot from the gigantic mass of Long's 

Peak. 

Near the top of this ridge was a notch, through 
which, as I got nearer, I could see that the tracks 
led. I hurried as much as possible, thinking to 
myself that he could not be very far off, and that 
in all probability when I got to the top and looked 
down through the notch into Willow Park beyond 
I should see him somewhere below me, and have 



SHEEP-HUNTING 191 

a good chance of a shot, or, at any rate, of a 
stalk. 

When I reached the top I found the tracks led 
down through the notch about twenty or thirty 
yards, and then stopped ; and on looking about me 
I discovered that my friend, this crafty old ram, 
had gone down a little way so as to deceive me, had 
then made a violent leap on one side, gone straight 
back again through the notch, climbed up to the 
top of a pile of rocks there, and no doubt had been 
looking at me and laughing as I toiled laboriously 
up the hillside after him until I got unpleasantly 
near, when he had stared off in the direction of the 
top of Long's Peak. It was now about three o'clock 
in the afternoon, and of course I had to give up the 
chase and scramble down the mountain as best I 
could. The ground was so dangerous that I was 
obliged to go very carefully, and it was dark before 
I got to the bottom of the deep ravine. 

I was very tired by this time, having been up 
before daylight, and working hard all day with 
nothing to eat ; and I was getting awfully cold 
also, for I had left my coat behind. However, I 
had to climb up the opposite slope, which I eventu- 
ally succeeded in doing, and then had to look for 
my coat, but could not find it anywhere. Then I 



192 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

searched for my luncheon bag, but could not find 
that either. 

It was pitch dark by this time, so I gave up the 
search for them, and began to look for my horse, 
but could not find him. 

It sounds very easy to remember where you 
left your horse, and to find him, but it is not such 
a simple matter when it is pitch dark, when there is 
nothing particular to mark the spot, and when you 
have the whole of Colorado to look in. I did not 
know what to do. I could have walked back in two 
or three hours' time, and would have done so, but 
I was afraid to leave my horse out all night, lest he 
should freeze to death. He was not hitched up by 
the bridle merely, but securely fastened with a 
strong new lariat, which he could not possibly have 
broken, so I kept hunting about until eventually I 
found the poor beast. How glad he was to see 
me ! No doubt he had made up his mind to be 
deserted. 

It was a difficult job to get home, for I had to 
lead the horse a long way down the hillside, over 
ground thickly strewn with fallen trees, and the 
night was pitch dark. I blundered and stumbled, 
and I swore, and he swore, if a horse can swear, 
and stumbled and blundered ; and we had a very 



SHEEP-HUNTING 193 

bad time of it altogether till we got on more level 
ground, and I was able to get on his back and make 
rapid progress. We reached the shanty, pretty 
tired, about eleven o'clock at night. That old ram 
had fooled me completely, and I have never since 
had a chance of paying him out for it. 



N 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 

'SEVENTIES 

ONE fine August day a friend of mine and 
1 I, being anxious to explore the hunting- 
grounds of Newfoundland, embarked on 
board an Allan steamship, and after a somewhat 
boisterous passage found ourselves deposited in 
the city of St. John's. 

St. John's, the capital of Newfoundland, is re- 
markably well situated on the northern side of a 
magnificent harbour. The entrance to the harbour 
is through a very narrow passage between lofty, 
precipitous, rugged cliffs ; but within, the haven 
expands and forms a perfectly secure, land-locked, 
and commodious shelter from the wild waves that 
lash those inhospitable shores. The most notice- 
able point about the city is that all the manufactur- 
ing energy of the population appears to be concen- 
trated in the making of long fisherman's boots, and 
the keeping of public-houses. It produces seal oil 
and cod-fish, and consumes rum and tobacco. St. 

John's is a busy, thriving, money-making place, and 

194 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 195 

the prosperity of the capital of the oldest colony 
of Great Britain is appreciated by the traveller long 
before he sets foot upon her classic shores ; for one 
side of the harbour smells abominably of dried 
cod-fish, and the other of seal oil. Judging by the 
accent, there must be a large mixture of Irish blood 
in the population, a conjecture which is not con- 
futed by the fact that the inhabitants of St. John's 
and of the outports — as all the other towns and 
settlements are called — and of the island in general, 
are a splendid set of tall, strong, active, healthy- 
looking men. Accustomed from childhood to 
brave the hardships of a most rigorous climate, 
drawing their sustenance from the teeming but 
treacherous bosom of a storm-vexed ocean, that 
rages in vain for ever round a rugged reef-bound 
coast ; navigating their frail and ill-found schooners 
amid tempest, ice, and fog, the Newfoundlanders 
have developed into one of the finest seafaring 
populations on the face of the globe. Nowhere can 
better mariners be found than among the hardy, 
adventurous, self-reliant men who ply their pre- 
carious calling along the dangerous shores of their 
native island, or on the wintry coast of the neigh- 
bouring mainland of Labrador. 

The principal industry of Newfoundland is the 



196 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

cod-fishery, and the chief centre of the trade is at 
St. John's, where the process of packing and 
shipping the salted fish may be witnessed to 
perfection. The fish, having been dried on stages 
erected for the purpose on the shores of every 
bay and inlet of the island, are brought to St. 
John's in small schooners and thrown in heaps 
upon the wharves of the merchants. There they 
are culled over, sorted into three or four piles 
according to their quality by experienced cullers, 
who separate the good from the indifferent, and 
the indifferent from the bad, with great rapidity 
and unerring skill. Women with hand-barrows 
attend upon the cullers, carry the fish into an 
adjoining shed, and upset their loads beside 
barrels standing ready to receive them. A couple 
of boys throw the fish into a cask, piling them up 
a foot or so above the brim, mount on the top, and 
having danced a war- dance upon them in their 
hob-nailed boots to pack them down, roll the 
barrel under a screw-press, where two men stand 
ready to take charge of it. Grasping the ends of 
the long arms of the lever, the men run quickly 
round a couple of times, lift their feet off the 
ground, and, throwing their weight on the lever 
to add impetus to the blow, swing round with it, 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 197 

and bring down the stamp with, a dull thud, com- 
pressing the cod-fish into a compact mass. The 
cask is then rolled out from under the press, and 
handed over to two coopers. In a trice the hoops 
are driven on, the cask is headed up, and then 
trundled down an incline into the hold of some 
vessel loading for the West Indies or some Mediter- 
ranean port. The rapidity with which the whole 
process is managed is remarkable. 

Sealing operations also are vigorously conducted 
by the inhabitants of St. John's. In former days 
the seal fishery was carried on in sailing vessels, 
and was attended with considerable danger ; but 
now that steamships are used the risk is much 
diminished. The paying nature of the business 
may be gathered from the fact that steamers of 
five or six hundred tons burden, built and fitted 
for the purpose, and quite useless for any other 
trade, make a large profit in average years, although 
the sealing season lasts only a month or six weeks. 
Early in the spring, about the beginning of March, 
the ice from the north strikes in towards the 
eastern coast of Newfoundland, bringing with it 
hundreds and hundreds of thousands of seals, young 
and old. Then St. John's wakes up, and the whole 
island is in a bustle. Though it entails constant 



198 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

exposure to great cold, and extremely hard work, 
the young men struggle eagerly to secure a berth 
for the sealing season, for they earn very high wages, 
and the business is salted with that element of un- 
certainty and danger which adds such a relish to 
life. At length everything is ready, and a fleet 
of steamers from St. John's, and of sailing craft, 
of all kinds and sizes from large coasting schooners 
down to open boats, issuing from every bay, start 
out to look for the ice. The ships, crowded with 
as many men as they can hold, make two trips of 
about a fortnight's duration each ; the first being 
devoted to the capture of the young seals, at that 
time only a few weeks old, and the second to the 
destruction of the full-grown animals. The latter 
are generally shot, while the former are knocked on 
the head with clubs. As soon as the ice is reached, 
the men scatter themselves about the field, running 
over the rough surface, jumping from block to 
block of loose ice, tumbling into holes and scramb- 
ling out again, wild with excitement in their search 
for seals. Each man acts independently, doing the 
best he can for himself. When he has killed a seal 
he stops but a minute to whip off the skin with 
the blubber attached, and fasten a cord to it, and 
then off again after another seal, till he has got 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 199 

as many as he can drag, when he returns, towing 
his load behind him, to the ship. The men work 
with a will, giving themselves scarcely time to eat 
or rest, for they receive a share of the profits 
according to the number of seals that each man 
brings in, and if the season is successful, an active 
and daring man will make a large sum of money. 
The seals are valuable only for the oil which is 
tried out of their fat, and which is employed for 
various lubricating purposes, and for their skins, 
which are tanned and used principally, I believe, 
for shoe leather. They do not produce the pelt 
which, when plucked and dyed, is worked up into 
those lovely sealskin jackets that are as destructive 
to the purse as they are delightful to the eye. 
The number of seals brought in annually is very 
great, as many as 500,000 having been killed in a 
single season, and the business employs nearly 
10,000 men. What becomes of the multitude of 
surviving seals is a problem I have never heard 
satisfactorily solved. The ice, on which they 
come down in swarms every year from the north, 
melts during the summer months soon after 
coming in contact with the warm waters of the 
Gulf Stream. What then becomes of the seals ? 
Do they find their way back through thousands 



200 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

of watery miles to their polar birthplace, or do 
they remain scattered about along the shores of 
Newfoundland and the neighbouring continent ? 
It is a problem in natural history similar to the eel 
puzzle at home, for we are still in ignorance as to 
what becomes of the millions of full-grown eels 
that descend our rivers with each autumn flood, 
but which are never seen reascending the stream. 

We remained some days in the interesting city 
of St. John's, much enjoying the kind hospitality 
of our friends, but waiting somewhat anxiously for 
an opportunity to get a lift down the coast to the 
neighbourhood of our proposed hunting-grounds. 
The regular fortnightly steamer did not call in 
anywhere near our destination, and day after day 
passed without any coasting vessel sailing in that 
direction. From this dilemma we were relieved 
by the kindness of a judge who was about to start 
on his circuit in one of the harbour tugs, and who 
very good-naturedly undertook to put us ashore 
at the mouth of the river we wished to ascend. 
This offer was most thankfully accepted, and 
shortly after, my friend and I, with three Micmac 
Indians from Bay of Despair, two birch-bark 
canoes, one month's provisions and a very limited 
supply of baggage, steamed out of the picturesque 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 201 

harbour of St. John's in the august society of the 
judge and all the functionaries of his court. The 
whole court was there assembled, including judge, 
barristers, lawyers, clerks, and all — everybody, in 
fact, except the criminals and the jurymen ; and 
it really was a pity they could not have been pro- 
vided also ; it would have saved such a lot of 
time and trouble. As far as I could see, there 
was very little work for the court to do. We 
would stop occasionally, apparently at any nice 
likely-looking spot for a malefactor, and send 
on shore to see if there was any demand for our 
commodity, namely, justice. Generally we were 
informed that the inhabitants did not require any 
just at present, but that perhaps if we would call 
again another time a little later, we might be more 
fortunate ; and then we would give three hideous 
steam whistles by way of a parting benediction, 
and plough our way through the yielding billows 
to some other settlement, where, if we were 
lucky, the court would divest itself of oilskin 
coats and sou'-westers, and go ashore to dispose 
of the case or cases to be tried. 

We were a very jolly party, and amused ourselves 
by lounging about the little deck enjoying the 
fresh air and grand wild coast scenery, reading 



202 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

" dime novels " and playing cards in the stifling 
saloon below, where we were veritably " cribbed, 
cabined, and confined " — stuffed as close as 
herrings in a cask. There was something rather 
comical in the whole proceeding. To my insular 
and antiquated notions, a judge is an awful form 
clad in a solemn wig and wrapped in gorgeous 
robes and the majesty of the law, and barristers 
and the whole personnel of a court of justice are 
superhuman creatures, extraordinary mortals to be 
looked upon with wonder not unmixed with awe ; 
and to see eminent counsel staggering about the 
slippery deck in long boots and guernsey frocks, 
and the highest functionary of the law con- 
descending to exchange remarks concerning the 
weather with grimy stokers and tarry-breeched 
seamen, and even experiencing inner qualms and 
spasms when our little ship tossed and struggled 
across some wide exposed bay, quite destroyed my 
illusions, and produced a feeling of somewhat 
irreverent amusement. The mere fact of the judge 
going his circuit in a tug-steamer appeared strange 
and incongruous, though why he should not go 
in a steamer just as naturally as in a train or a 
coach-and-four, I do not know. Indeed, it was 
the natural mode of progression in Newfoundland, 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 203 

where trie ocean is, or was at the time of my visit, 
the principal highway. Roads in those days — and 
I am thinking of events which happened some 
years ago — there were none, except in the vicinity 
of St. John's and one or two other towns. People 
who, for their sins, had to go from one part of the 
island to another, travelled in the most uncertain, 
vague, and promiscuous manner, sometimes taking 
days, weeks, or even months, in accomplishing 
quite a short distance, and sometimes never getting 
to their destination at all. The usual method of 
procedure appeared to be to embark in the coasting 
steamer, and go ashore as near the place you 
wished to visit as the route pursued by the steamer 
would permit. The traveller might by that means 
get within ten or twenty or fifty or one hundred 
miles of his destination, as the case might be. 
He would then betake himself to a house or cabin, 
if there happened to be one in the neighbourhood, 
and wait there, or he would build a big fire and 
sit on a rock until some coasting schooner, or 
fishing smack, or open boat happened to pass by, 
going in the right direction, in which he would 
embark and get another lift upon his road. By 
such means he would eventually accomplish his 
object if he was lucky ; but if, unluckily, no craft 



204 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

going the right way came by, he would be com- 
pelled to take a passage in some vessel or boat 
bound in exactly the opposite direction to that in 
which he wished to move. I remember we called 
in at some place or other — I forget the name — on 
our way back to St. John's, after our hunting ex- 
pedition, and a clergyman came on board begging 
for a passage. " I understand," he said, " that 
you are bound round the north end of the island 
to Halifax. It is rather out of my way to go there, 
it is true, for my destination is a few miles south 
of this ; but I have been waiting here till I am 
sick and tired of it, for a chance of a lift down the 
coast, and I shall be truly obliged to you if 
you will take me to Halifax, where I can get the 
fortnightly Allan steamer to St. John's, which 
will be better, at any rate, than waiting here in- 
definitely." 

We replied that we were bound for St. John's and 
not for Halifax, as he had supposed, and that we 
should be delighted to take him on board. " Oh," 
he cried joyfully, " that is charming, it will suit me 
much better of course to go straight to St. John's. 
I have been wandering about for weeks and weeks 
trying to get to my parish, which is not far from 
here. I was staying in St. John's on a visit to 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 205 

some friends, when I received a message saying 
that one of my parishioners was dead and required 
to be buried. As the necessities of the case were 
pressing, I took my passage in the coasting steamer 
that left the following morning, and ought to have 
arrived at my destination the same night. Un- 
fortunately, however, a strong off-shore breeze 
sprang up, and the steamer being unable to call 
in carried me some distance up the coast to the 
next stopping- place. Then I was delayed some 
days till I got a lift in a fishing schooner, but she 
was driven by stress of weather into some little 
harbour where no steamers called, and eventually 
went off in a direction that did not suit me at all. 
The same bad luck has pursued me all along, and 
I have been wandering about ever since, taking 
every opportunity offered me by passing coasting 
craft or fishing-boats ; sometimes being carried 
miles away, sometimes getting pretty near, but 
never succeeding in actually reaching my journey's 
end. As the season is getting late and winter 
will soon be upon us, I made up my mind to 
abandon the attempt for the present, and go 
round with you to Halifax, if you would take me, 
and so back to St. John's to finish my visit ; for as 
it is now a couple of months or so since my services 



206 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

were required to bury the gentleman, it is probable 
that my presence is no longer necessary on that 
account." We were much more astonished than was 
our guest at the extraordinary delays and troubles 
to which he had been subjected, but after be- 
coming a little better acquainted with Newfound- 
land, we perceived that there was nothing so very 
unusual in his misfortunes after all, and that 
similar experiences were looked upon with a calm 
and philosophical spirit by the natives. 

It was late in the afternoon of a beautiful, still, 
warm autumn day that the Hercules dropped 
her anchor in the Bay, and after putting us safely 
ashore with our Indians, canoes, and baggage, and 
after three hearty cheers and three hideous ear- 
splitting screams from the whistle, steamed away 
out to sea again and left us to our own devices. 
There was quite a settlement in those parts, con- 
sisting of a small saw-mill and house adjoining in- 
habited by the white man who ran the mill, and of 
two or three families of Indians, all rejoicing in the 
name of Joe. The head of the tribe was old Abra- 
ham Joe, a fine specimen of his race, an active up- 
right man, standing about six feet two inches in 
his moccasins, and broad and strong in proportion. 
He had spent nearly all his life in Newfoundland, 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 207 

and knew the interior of the island better than any 
man living. He was a good hunter, trapper, and 
guide, but he was — well, he is dead, and I will put it 
mildly — he had the bump of acquisitiveness highly 
developed. They had, I should imagine, a very 
pleasant life, these Indians ; and if one can judge by 
the independence of the men, and the nature and 
quality of the clothing worn by the girls, they must 
have been very well off in this world's goods. They 
had comfortable little cabins, in which they spent 
the winter in comparative idleness, earning little 
or nothing. The single exception to this rule was 
in the case of one of old Abraham Joe's sons, who 
carried the mail during the winter and spring 
months between St. John's and the copper-mines 
at the entrance of the Bay. He was well paid, and 
deservedly so, for his was an arduous task. Travel- 
ling on snow-shoes backwards and forwards over a 
distance of some hundreds of long, weary, desolate, 
monotonous miles, over bare wind-swept barrens, 
through dense pine forests and thick alder swamps, 
without a mark to guide or a hut to shelter the 
traveller ; tramping on alone with no companion 
to cheer one on the lonely way, without the chance 
even of seeing a human being from one end of the 
journey to the other ; struggling along from dawn 



208 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

to dark of the short wintry days against snow, 
storm, or sleet, or in the bitter cold of hard frosty 
weather ; crouching through the long nights by a 
solitary fire with a few bushes stuck in the snow for 
shelter ; caught perhaps in some sudden thaw, 
when the softened snow clogs and sticks in the 
netting of the snow-shoes, and progress is almost 
impossible ; exposed to mal &e raquette, snow 
blindness, and all the chances of a forest life — such 
an occupation is one that fully deserves to be well 
paid. However, the activity of this particular 
" Joe " was abnormal ; the rest of the family spent 
their winters lounging about the beach, making 
perhaps a few mast hoops, butter tubs, or fish 
barrels, or sitting by the stove indoors, smoking 
their pipes and doing nothing. In the summer they 
fished a little, and in the autumn the whole com- 
munity went up Indian brook and spent two months 
in the interior of the island, shooting and trapping 
beavers and otters. Fur was pretty plentiful in 
those days, and a man could make a good income 
out of a couple of months' hard work, furring in the 
fall. These " Joes " appeared to entertain, to a 
limited extent, communistic principles, while par- 
tially recognising at the same time the right of pri- 
vate ownership in land and chattels. They would 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 209 

use each other's boats, canoes, &c. without hesita- 
tion, but spoke of them nevertheless as belonging 
to some individual member of the sept. They 
wandered about the island in an apparently hap- 
hazard, aimless, happy-go-lucky way, and some 
member or other of the family was always turning 
up at odd times in unexpected places. Some- 
times we would meet a Joe striding over some 
barren or crossing a lake in his canoe ; occasionally 
a Joe would drop into our camp, miles away from 
anywhere, unprovided with boat, canoe, provisions 
or baggage of any kind, and furnished only with a 
pipe, tobacco, a rusty gun, and some powder and 
lead. He would sit down quietly by the fire and 
chat a little and smoke a little, and after a while 
accept, with apparent insouciance, an invitation to 
eat and drink, and after consuming enough food for 
three men and swallowing a few quarts of tea, 
would say, " Well, I suppose I shall be going now. 
Adieu, gentlemen, adieu. Yes, I guess I was pretty 
hungry ; most starved, I expect. How am I going 
to cross the lake ? Oh, that's all right ; we — 
that's old Peter John Joe's son, and I — got a canoe 
a little way off ; mebbe one, two, three, four miles ; 
I'll cross in her, I reckon. Expect likely I'll see 
you again by and by — I shall be coming out again 



210 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

about the end of this moon." " Well, good-bye," 
said we, " but where are you going to ? not trap- 
ping, evidently, because you have got no traps." 
" Yes, I'm a going a trapping, that's so. Not far — 
mebbe two or three days back in the woods — 
beaver pretty plenty there ; left my traps there last 
fall — no, let me see, fall before last, I guess." 
" But what are you going to live on all the time ? ' : 
" Oh, I got plenty grub, no fear ; not much tea, 
though " (showing a little parcel of the fragrant 
herb knotted up in a corner of his dirty blanket), 
" and no sweetening : mebbe you could spare a 
little tea and sugar, eh ? No ! ah well, all the 
same, never mind, suppose my tea give out, per- 
haps make some spruce tea. You see young John 
Joe, he got a cache yonder, away off just across that 
blue ridge, about one day or one day and a half, or 
mebbe two days' journey, plenty flour there ; and 
young Peter John Joe and old John Peter Joe, they 
cached their cooking-pots on the little stream there, 
near the north end of big blueberry pond. See you 
again soon. Adieu ! " and after a few words in 
Micmac to our Indians, this particular Joe would 
walk off, to be seen no more till he reappeared after 
some time with half a canoe load of beaver skins, or 
perhaps to turn up quite unexpectedly in the course 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 2 1 1 

of a day or two, in company with some other Joe 
whom he had come across promiscuous-like in the 
woods. Over this small community and large 
territory old Abraham Joe ruled after the manner of 
a feudal lord, settling all little disputes and parcel- 
ling out the country into hunting-grounds for each 
individual member of his family. Indians are very 
tenacious of their territorial rights : each man 
has his own hunting, or rather furring, ground 
accurately marked out with the marches carefully 
fixed, perhaps up one river from its mouth to its 
source, then across in a straight line through the 
woods to some other creek, and down that stream 
to such and such a lake, and so on ; the boundaries 
are all arranged among themselves, and it is con- 
sidered a most iniquitous proceeding for one 
trapper to trespass on the district belonging to 
another. Their system of land tenure is similar 
to that of most primitive peoples in tribal times. 
They consider that the land belongs in common 
to the clan, but each member has a certain part 
of it allotted to him for his temporary use, and he 
possesses a limited life-ownership over his own 
particular share. Poor old Abraham Joe was very 
unhappy about the state of things in Newfound- 
land. Too much civilisation was destroying the 



212 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

island, in his estimation. " Yes, sir," he said to 
me one day, " things is very different from what 
they used to be. Lord ! I mind the times when 
a man might travel from one end of the island to 
the other and never see nobody nowheres. Beavers 
were plenty then, and there was a good price for 
fur too ; now there ain't no price, and beavers and 
otters ain't plenty like they used to be. Those 

d lumbermen be come up the rivers and 

scare the game. Why, there ain't a bay scarcely 
anywheres without one, mebbe even two liviers l 
in it. Yes, sir, it's true ; Newfoundland he 
spoil, too much people come, too much people 
altogether in the country, no use furring any more, 
no price now for beaver skins, very bad times now, 
most impossible to make a living. Expect you 
don't want that axe-head, do you, sir ? It would 
come in very handy. I lost mine the other day — 
head flew clean off the handle into the water. Can't 
do without it, can't you ? Well, never mind ; mebbe 
you won't want to take your canoes out of the 
country. I'd like to trade with you for one of 
them." He became a positive nuisance, did the 
old man, about the axe-head, and followed us 

1 A " livier " signifies a person who lives all the year round in a locality, 
in contradistinction to one who only visits it during the fishing season. 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 213 

about for days on the chance of getting it for 
nothing, pleading awful poverty, at the same time 
that he refused an offer of four dollars a day to 
come with us for a short time hunting. 

The sole representatives of the Joe tribe left 
at home on the evening of our arrival were an old 
woman and two girls of about eighteen or twenty, 
whose clear complexions and good features I must 
suppose were to be accounted for by some mysteri- 
ous influence exercised by the superior over the 
inferior race, for I should be sorry to indulge for 
a moment even in speculation which might be 
derogatory to the conduct and character of former 
generations of Joes. On inquiry, we found that 
most of the family had gone off some days before 
to the copper mines, to solemnise the wedding of 
a couple of fond and youthful Joes, and were 
expected home that night. About midnight they 
returned ; two large whale-boats full of them, 
rather noisy and very jovial. The unfortunate but 
loving Joes had not succeeded in getting married, 
as the priest, who was expected to arrive by the 
coasting steamer, had failed to put in an appear- 
ance ; but nowise discouraged by this untoward 
event, the party had consumed the wedding 
breakfast, wisely deciding that the ceremony 



2i 4 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

might keep, but the viands would not. The 
bride and bridegroom bore their disappointment 
with a philosophical composure to be found only 
among people who attach no value whatever to 
time. In answer to our condolence they replied, 
" Oh, no matter ; mebbe he come next steamer, 
mebbe in two, three months, mebbe not come till 
next year," and dismissed the subject as though 
it were a matter of no importance whatever to 
them. 

We tried hard to obtain the services of some 
able-bodied Joe, but they were all bent on going 
into the woods to hunt beaver on their own 
account, and nothing would induce any of the 
men to take service with us. We might have had 
our pick of the women, and we regretted after- 
wards that we had not engaged a couple of girls. 
They are just as well acquainted with the country 
as the men ; they can paddle a canoe and do all 
that a man can, except carry loads, and are able 
to fulfil certain duties that a man cannot — for 
instance, they can cook, tan hides, and wash and 
mend clothes. We often regretted afterwards that 
we had gone into the country without a guide. 
The Joes would not give our Indians any accurate 
instructions, and although an Indian in St. John's 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 215 

had explained the route to me as well as he could, 
it is so difficult for a white man to understand an 
Indian's description of a country, that my ideas 
on the subject were very vague and hazy. An 
Indian thinks little of the points of the compass, 
and uses them very inaccurately. He seems to rely 
rather upon the prominent landmarks and principal 
features of the country to find his way about, and 
attempts to explain the route by reference to 
solitary pines, high hills, hard wood ridges, swamps, 
and streams. In saying that a river runs south- 
west, he probably is taking it the reverse way, 
counting from the mouth to the source, and really 
means that it has a north-east course ; and he in- 
variably calls all the tributaries of a river by one 
and the same name : a fact which leads to infinite 
confusion. However, we determined to trust to 
luck to find our way to the hunting-grounds, and, 
after spending all the forenoon in patching up 
canoes and arranging the baggage in suitable- 
sized bundles, we made a start late in the after- 
noon, poled up to a picturesque fall some four 
miles from the mouth of the stream, made our 
" portage " round it and camped for the night. 
It was a lovely evening, and we thoroughly enjoyed 
it as we lay on our comfortable beds of safin, 



216 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

gazing, through the transparent walls of our tent, 
at the moonlight mingling with the flickering 
flames of the camp fire, listening to the whisper 
of the wind among the trees, and the distant 
drowsy varying music of the fall, smoking our pipes 
in placid contentment, delighted that at last we 
were fairly launched into the woods. 

We got along very nicely for the next two days, 
though our progress was not rapid, but on the third 
day the brook became so shallow that we had great 
difficulty in advancing any farther. The chanael 
was almost dry in places, and we had to wade all 
day, heaving stones out of the way, pushing aid 
pulling our heavily laden canoes by hand, carefully 
manoeuvring them among the rocks, and wriggEng 
our way very slowly up the lessening stream. It 
was evident that we must be near the head of navi- 
gation, and my companion and I splashed on ahead 
in the bed of the stream to look out for the " por- 
tage." We walked and walked till we felt sure 
that we must have passed the " carry," and were 
on the point of turning back when I espied a swarthy 
countenance peering cautiously at us through an 
alder bush. " Bojour ! " said we, and " Bojour ! " 
answered old Abraham Joe, emerging from his 
covert. " Where are you going to ? " " Well," 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 217 

we replied, " we don't exactly know where we are 
going to, but we are looking for the c portage.' 
Is it anywhere near here ? " " Yes," said he, 
" close handy, just a little ways up the stream. 
Water very low, ain't it ? Plenty rain pretty soon, 
and then have good water in the brook. You 
going hunting, I guess ? Not much good, deer all 
gone. You wait, by and by we get through hunt- 
ing ; mebbe one of my sons show you where to 
find plenty. Mebbe I go with you myself," added 
the old man, with an air that seemed to say, 
" There, just think of that : there's a chance you 
don't get every day of the week." We camped that 
night on the portage, and the next day " carried " 
over to a neighbouring lake in a drenching rain, 
and pitched our tent close to the camp of the 
patriarch and certain other members of the Joe 
family. The old man's prophecy of " plenty rain 
come soon " was abundantly fulfilled during the 
next three days, for it rained and blew, and blew 
and rained, the whole time without ceasing. The 
natives did not seem to mind it in the least, but 
lounged about in the wet as unconcernedly as if 
water was their natural element. I remember 
going over to old Joe's tent one morning for some- 
thing or other, and finding a little French boy that 



218 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

he had with him lying outside by the dead sodden 
ashes of the fire, in a most uncomfortable attitude, 
leaning on his elbow with his head supported by 
his hand, drenched of course to the skin through his 
tattered clothing, and shivering with cold, but 
sleeping soundly all the same. " Why, Joe," I said, 
" what a shame to keep that miserable little boy out 
in the cold and wet all night." " Oh," he replied, 
" he don't mind ; he hard, hard all the same as one 

d dog : do him good." 

We remained a few days on the shores of the 
lake, but finding no sign of game, crossed to the 
opposite side, made a short " portage " to another 
lake, traversed that, and after a long and toilsome 
tramp over land of some eight or ten miles, arrived 
at what we hoped would prove our final destination. 
What a lovely hunting country it was ! Not 
more than half a mile from our camp, which was 
placed in a nicely sheltered little island of wood, 
rose a steep hill, which commanded an unob- 
structed view over miles of open country. Bare, 
dry, barren, the surface principally composed of 
rock covered with lichens on which the reindeer 
feed, alternating with patches of softer ground 
carpeted with the beautiful ivory white caribou 
moss, shallow pools and trickling streams, sheltered 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 219 

depressions in the plain supporting a sparse growth 
of junipers and dwarf pines, combined to form a 
perfect paradise for game. But, alas ! it turned 
out to be an empty Eden. Day after day we wore 
out our moccasins tramping over the stony ground, 
seeking for a sign but finding none ; day after day 
we climbed the look-out hill and vainly swept the 
plain with our glasses. That game had once been 
abundant was very evident, for the plain was crossed 
in all directions by paths worn deep into the surface 
by the countless feet of constantly passing herds of 
caribou, but now rapidly filling up through long 
disuse. Patches of sun-dried clay showed footprints 
that had been made long before our arrival ; the 
tattered bark and broken branches of many a pine- 
tree showed where a great stag had rubbed his horns, 
but the scars were all old and brown ; numerous 
horns lay scattered about in evidence of how plen- 
tiful the deer must have been at one time, but they 
were bleached by the sun, weather-worn and half- 
consumed. It was plain enough that deer had once 
frequented those plains in great numbers, but it 
was equally certain that not a deer had visited them 
for months. The great barrens on which we were 
hunting — if a man can be said to be hunting when 
there is nothing to hunt — stretch nearly right across 



220 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

the island from east to west, and occupy all the 
country from north to south between Grand Pond, 
a magnificent lake of some eighty miles in length, 
and Red Indian Pond. The extent of hunting 
country is very large ; and, thinking that surely 
there must be some herds of deer out on the barrens 
somewhere, we made expeditions from the main 
camp of a day or two's journey, and thoroughly 
searched the country in all directions. It was in 
vain ; not a fresh track did we find. We proved 
that there was not a herd of caribou within twenty 
miles or more of us, and, after spending a fortnight 
of our valuable time in a most unprofitable manner, 
we packed up our goods, and with weary and dis- 
pirited steps returned to our canoes, made the best 
of our way back to Joe's camp, and after resting a 
day, started in the teeth of a fierce gale for Grand 
Pond. 

Our course led us through a splendid game 
country. We camped at nights in the very passages 
through which, in former days, the caribou used to 
pass in countless numbers during their annual 
autumn migration from the north to the south side 
of the island, but we were a day too late for the fair. 
Lumber-men were cutting timber on the shores of 
Deer Pond and rafting it down the broad current 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 221 

of the Humber ; white men had invaded those 
solitudes, and the caribou had abandoned them in 
disgust. We made a nice camp at the north end 
of Grand Pond at the mouth of a little stream 
from which a faint trail, blazed some ten or perhaps 
twenty years before by a wandering Indian, led up 
through the pine woods to the open barren above, 
and there we stayed for a week, during which time 
we saw three hinds and killed one of them. The 
flesh was welcome, for we had been living all the 
time on beaver meat ; but what we wanted was one 
or two of the gigantic heads for which the New- 
foundland stags are so famous ; and as it did not 
appear likely that we should be successful in that 
district, we packed up for the third time, paddled 
some ten or twelve miles down the lake, lugged our 
tent, bedding, and cooking things up a steep hill- 
side, and camped just on the edge of the barren, 
about a thousand feet above the lake, determined 
to make one more attempt. The next morning 
my friend, accompanied by one of our Indians, 
started in one direction, while young Joe John — 
who had joined us for a few days — and I tried our 
luck in another. 

It was a lovely morning as we cleared the woods 
and emerged upon the open breezy barren. The 



222 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

sky was cloudless : we could see for miles round 
to the south of us and across the lake to the north, 
but the surface of the water was hidden by a veil — 
not of mist, but of thick solid-looking cloud. The 
effect was curious, for the whole valley of the lake 
was filled with a bank of white motionless cloud, 
so level that it looked as if the water had been 
turned into milk. Suddenly, as the sun rose 
higher, this mass began to move — to roll about 
and lift a little in places — and then, almost instan- 
taneously, it all broke up, curled off in wreaths, 
vanished in thin air, and disclosed the placid 
deep-blue surface of the water beneath. We had 
not walked far before we discovered three stags 
standing distinct against the sky-line on a distant 
ridge. The ground was so level and so bare of 
cover, that it was impossible to get near them un- 
perceived, and I was obliged to content myself 
with a long shot. I fired both barrels, and, to my 
disgust, saw all three deer trot quietly off together. 
After a while they wheeled round and stood 
looking back to see what was the matter, and gave 
me a chance for another long shot, which seemed to 
satisfy their curiosity, for they turned at once 
and disappeared over a little rise. An expression 
more emphatic than polite escaped my lips, I 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 223 

fear ; but Joe only smiled, and said, " How many 
deer went over the rise ? Three, eh ? I only see 
two now going up the other side : one stop down 
in the hollow ; mebbe you hit him, or what he 
stop down there for ? " " By Jove ! Joe, you are 
right," cried I. " Let's after him." " No, no ; 
he all right — he safe enough ; bound to get him 
by and by. Let's go after the other two. They 
won't go far, not much scared — no wind, you 
know — and not much afraid of the noise." The 
stags in truth were not much alarmed, and more- 
over they were so fat, so preposterously fat, that 
they literally could scarcely run away ; and after 
a very hard chase, keeping ourselves as much as 
possible out of sight, we got within range again 
and bagged another stag. While Joe was engaged 
upon the dead body of the deer, I noticed some 
object moving a long way off, and with the glass 
made out two men, one looking towards us, while 
the other was stooping and working at something 
on the ground. " Hurrah, Joe ! " said I, " they 
have got the other one. Not a bad bag after all, 
to finish up an unsuccessful hunt. Luck has 
turned at last. Plenty of fresh meat for supper 
to-night, Joe." " Yes," muttered Joe, with his 
bloody knife between his teeth, " glad of it too. 



224 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

I have not tasted a bit of fresh meat this year : 
most tired of chewing beaver meat ; you got two 
days more, eh ? Well, we go out again to-morrow ; 
leave the other men to fetch the meat in and 
mebbe get something more. Suppose you let me 
have the skins to make snow-shoes : must beat 
out for something to make snow-shoes this winter. 
No deer left in this country now." So Joe worked 
away gralloching the deer, while I, having made a 
little smudge of dry lichens and moss to windward 
to keep off the swarms of black flies that pestered 
us, smoked my pipe, happy in the certainty that 
we should not suffer the disgrace of returning to 
St. John's quite empty-handed. 

Scarcely had Joe and I got well away from the 
camp next morning, when such a blinding storm 
of rain came on that we were compelled to make 
a little shelter for ourselves among some dwarf 
junipers and wait till it was over. We lit a little 
fire, boiled some water in a pannikin, brewed some 
tea, and talked about hunting until the clouds 
lifted and enabled us to see our way about the 
country ; but the best part of the day was gone, 
and we had to return to camp without seeing 
anything or even a fresh track. The day following 
we were obliged to set out on our homeward 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 225 

journey, for we had left ourselves only just time 
enough to catch the tug steamer which was to 
call for us in the bay, even by travelling almost 
night and day ; but as I was loath to quit the 
country without one more try, Joe and I climbed 
up to the barren before daylight, leaving the 
others to pack up, carry the baggage and meat 
down to the lake, and get everything ready for a 
start in the afternoon. Joe got the best of me 
that day to the extent of twenty-five dollars, the 
villain. We had walked for hours without seeing 
a thing, when he remarked in a casual manner, 
6 You have not seen no bears, have you, since 
you came in the island ? " " No, Joe," I replied, 
" not even a sign. I should have thought bears 
would have been plenty enough ; there is lots of 
feed for them, goodness knows, for the whole 
barren is covered with blueberries ; but they 
seem to be very scarce." " Yes," answered Joe, 
" bear's awful scarce in Newfoundland, but I 
think I know a place where we might find one, 
only I ain't got much time ; want to get back to 
my beaver trapping, you know. What you give 
me if I show you a bear ? " " Oh, well," I said, 
" I don't know ; there is no chance of that now ; 
but I would give a five- pound note for a shot at 



226 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

a bear if we had time to look for one." " All 
right," said Joe ; " suppose I show you a bear 
within shot, you give me five pounds, eh ? " 
"Yes, Joe, certainly I will," replied I. "That's 
sure, eh ? " " Yes." " Well, look yonder." And 
following the direction of Joe's extended hand, I 
saw a little black speck moving about near the 
summit of a neighbouring mountain. " Oh, I 
say, Joe, that is rather too bad," I remonstrated. 
" I could have seen him just as well as you, and 
got up to him too, for that matter. However, a 
bargain is a bargain, so let us go for him." The 
ground was very bare and open, but Bruin (or 
" Mouin," as the Indians call him) was so busily 
engaged eating blueberries, that he allowed us to 
crawl up pretty near. I had to wait some time for 
a shot, for the bear would not stand still for a 
second, but kept turning himself about restlessly, 
moving rapidly from bush to bush, grumbling to 
himself the while — complaining, no doubt, about 
the scarcity of berries that autumn and the diffi- 
culty of filling his ravenous inside. At last I got 
a good opportunity, but made a bad shot, striking 
the animal too low down on the shoulder, and 
only breaking his leg. With a violent snort of 
pain and astonishment, but without looking round 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 227 

for a second to see what was the matter, away 
went " Mourn " down the mountain side at a 
most surprising pace. " Come on," yelled Joe. 
' Try and head him off ; if he once gets down 
into the timber he is gone sure." And away we 
went after him as hard as we could tear. How 
Joe jumped and bounded and yelled, and how the 
bear did put out down that hill-side ! He seemed 
to go twice as fast on three legs as any other 
animal ever went on four. Sometimes Joe would 
head the bear and turn him, sometimes the bear 
would make a drive at Joe and turn him, which 
would give me time to get up ; and so we went 
on yelling and whooping and plunging through the 
tangled matted junipers, the bear doubling and 
twisting, and sometimes charging us, but always 
struggling gallantly to gain the shelter of the 
woods. We had the best of Bruin as long as we 
were on the bare ground near the top, but when 
we got among the junipers growing horizontally 
like creepers along the ground, not rising more 
than three or four feet above the surface, but with 
stems as thick as your leg, and interlacing branches 
as hard and springy as steel, then the bear got so 
much the best of us, that we feared we should 
lose him. Now and then I would get a shot, but 



228 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

shooting under such circumstances is chance work, 
and I missed the bear several times, until at last 
with a lucky shot I rolled him over, and Joe and I 
threw ourselves down exhausted beside his dead 
body. Joe's first action was to be violently sea- 
sick ; he then sat him down on a rock, filled and 
lit his pipe, and gasped out, " Oh, I thought we 
should have taken off our breeches ! " I stared at 
Joe, thinking his exertions had produced a fit of 
temporary insanity, and said, " Why, Joe, what 
on earth should we take off our breeches for ? " 
" What for ? — Why, suppose you not got any 
breeches on, you run heap faster. Best always 
take 'em off before shooting at a bear : he run such 
a devil of a pace if you only wound him." And so, 
having rested a little and skinned our bear, and 
packed the hide and some meat on our backs, we 
scrambled down to the shore, chucked our burdens 
into the canoes lying ready laden, and paddled off 
under the light of a rising moon. 

Our canoes were deep in the water. A straight 
course led us far from shore, and once or twice my 
heart leaped into my throat with a horrid feeling 
of apprehension, at the sudden unearthly scream 
of a startled loon, sounding exactly like a human 
shriek of agony denoting the capsize of one of the 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 229 

following canoes ; but no such untoward accident 
occurred, and after some hours of paddling we 
drew up our boats at our old camp near the head 
of the lake, made a fire, cooked and ate our supper, 
and after a couple of hours' sleep started again 
the following morning, about two hours before 
dawn. We had hard work on that day's journey. 
The river was very rapid : our course lay up 
stream, and we had to pole all the way. It is not 
easy for a novice to stand upright in a small 
birch-bark canoe, but after a little practice he 
gets his canoe legs, and learns not only to balance 
himself without danger to the frail craft, but to 
exert in safety the whole of his strength in forcing 
her up some rapid stream. It is astonishing to 
see the apparent ease with which two good men 
will drive a canoe up a rapid. They approach it 
in the same way as does a fish, stealing quietly up, 
husbanding their strength, and taking advantage 
of every little eddy to get as close to the fall as 
possible ; and then make a rush out into the 
stream without any hurry, plashing, or confusion, 
but with quiet, methodical, concentrated strength. 
Once out in the full force of the current, and the 
struggle begins. For a few yards the momentum 
of the canoe carries her on ; then she stops, the 



230 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

men throw their whole weight upon their poles, 
that bend beneath them and tremble in the 
glancing stream ; the water hisses by the side, 
and curls up in front of the prow as the canoe is 
forced up inch by inch against the tide. Hold on 
now in the stern, while the bow-man takes a fresh 
hold. Down slips the canoe half a fathom, while 
the man in the stern snatches his pole from the 
water and drives it fiercely down again and holds 
her up once more against the torrent. Perhaps his 
pole slips, or gets jammed between two stones, or 
in spite of all their efforts to keep her end-on to 
the stream, the boat's head slews a little on one 
side, and away you float helplessly down stream, 
only to make another effort, and if necessary 
another and another, until the obstacle is over- 
come. At last it is overcome : inch by inch, foot 
by foot, yard by yard, the quivering bark struggles 
up, till with a final powerful shove she is lifted 
over the break of the fall, and glides into still 
water above. The three principles of poling are : 
first, never to put out your strength until you 
know, by the feel of it, that your pole is firmly 
fixed, and does not rest on some loose or smooth 
and slippery stone. Secondly, to be careful to 
exert your force in a line parallel with the keel of 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 231 

the canoe, and to keep your pole perpendicularly 
under you, so that you can draw the canoe towards 
it or push her away, according as you may wish. 
If you plant your pole too far out or too much 
under the canoe, and throw your weight across 
her or hang over on your own side, a capsize is 
probable, if not inevitable. Thirdly, if your pole 
gets jammed and you cannot snatch it out in a 
second, let go instantly ; for if you hold on and 
drag at it, either the canoe will upset or she will 
slip in the most miraculous manner from under 
your feet, and you will find yourself suspended 
for a second in space, and then plunged into a 
raging flood. 

We made camp early that afternoon, for the work 
had been very severe, and we needed rest ; but 
seeing a lot of salmon on the shallows, we deter- 
mined, in spite of fatigue, to do a little bit of poach- 
ing and burn the water before turning in. An 
Indian fish-spear is a very simple affair, but it is far 
superior to any civilised instrument of the same kind. 
It consists of a straight iron spike about six inches 
long, let into the end of a pole of ash, or some other 
heavy wood, and two wooden jaws lashed one on 
each side of the spike. These jaws must be made 
of some tough elastic material, and are so shaped 



232 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

as to be furnished with broad barbs on the inner 
sides. There is a space of about six inches be- 
tween the points of the jaws, which project an inch 
or two beyond the end of the iron spike, but the 
barbs are not more than a couple of inches apart ; 
beyond and inside the barbs the jaws open out 
again to a breadth of about four or five inches. 
When a fish is fairly struck, the wooden jaws ex- 
pand, the iron spike transfixes him, the weight of 
the blow forces him up above the barbs, and the 
jaws, closing in again, hold him as fast as though he 
were in a vice. This kind of spear is very light and 
handy. It holds a salmon as securely as any lyster, 
and it does not gash and mangle the fish. The 
material for the wooden portion of our spear was 
not difficult to procure, but we were puzzled to 
find anything that would do for the indispensable 
iron spike, and at last had to make up our minds to 
sacrifice the handle of the frying-pan. No sooner 
said than done. In a few minutes the rivets were 
knocked out, and the handle stuck in the embers of 
the fire. While some of us were manufacturing 
the spike by beating out the handle on an axe-head 
and afterwards grinding it to a sharp point on a 
smooth stone, one of the Indians was hard at work 
making the pole and jaws with his hatchet and 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 233 

crooked knife. With these two implements an 
Indian will make anything. I have often watched 
with admiration a man fell a maple-tree, and in an 
hour or two turn out a smooth, delicately poised, 
accurately shaped axe-haft or paddle, with the help 
of no other tools than his axe and his crooked 
knife, an instrument which he generally makes for 
himself out of a file, and which resembles in shape 
the drawing knife of a shoeing smith. There is one 
peculiarity about the red man worth mentioning, 
namely, that in using a knife he invariably cuts 
towards his body, while a white man always cuts 
away from his. The Indians of all the coast pro- 
vinces are skilful workmen with the crooked knife, 
and earn a good deal of money by making butter 
firkins, tubs, mast-hoops, and various articles of a 
similar nature. 

By sunset we had finished our spear, and had 
collected a good supply of birch bark ; and as soon 
as it was dark a couple of us launched a canoe, and 
after lighting a bunch of birch bark stuck in a cleft 
stick in the bow of the boat to act as a torch, 
started on our poaching expedition. We all of us 
had a turn at spearing, and most comical attempts 
we made. An empty canoe is possessed by a most 
malignant spirit of perversity : it floats light as a 



234 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

dry leaf upon the water, and spins round and round, 
and insists on going in the wrong direction, and 
displays a propensity to slip suddenly from under 
your feet, and in fact behaves altogether in a very 
fickle and cantankerous manner. Mishaps, though 
frequent, were only ludicrous ; for the water was 
shallow, salmon were numerous, and in spite of our 
awkwardness we had fresh fish for supper that night. 
We made good progress next day, and arrived at our 
old camp on the first lake about sunset. It rained 
in perfect torrents that night, and we had a most 
uncomfortable time of it, carrying across to Indian 
Brook. The water had fallen so much since we 
were there, that we found it necessary to make a 
portage of six miles instead of two, so as to strike 
the river lower down. It is no joke carrying 
canoes six miles over a rough ground, and though 
our Indians worked splendidly, it did not want 
many hours to dawn by the time we had got every- 
thing across, and were changing wet clothes for 
damp ones, and trying to dry ourselves before a huge 
fire, under the partial shelter of a hastily arranged 
lean-to. If we had only known that it was going to 
rain so hard, we might have been spared the trouble 
of making the long portage, for when day broke we 
found the stream had risen at least a foot, and was 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 235 

coming down in a torrent that bore us rapidly 
towards the sea. It was getting dusk when we 
approached the most ticklish part of the naviga- 
tion : we might truthfully have sung — 

" Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, 
The rapids are near and the daylight past " ; 

and under any other circumstances we would have 
camped for the night ; but we were so anxious to 
save our time with the steamer, that we determined 
to chance the rapids, and kept on our way after 
dark. It was a lovely night — a night the very 
memory of which is soothing to the heart : a night 
such as can be seen only in high latitudes ; for, in 
spite of all the poetry that has been written on the 
subject, I maintain that no sultry southern night 
can compare in beauty with the great glory of the 
moonlit or star-studded heavens revealed through 
the clear and frosty atmosphere of the icy north. 
The broad friendly moon rose above the pine trees, 
climbed up among the stars, drowning their feeble 
beams with a deepening flood of radiance, and 
hung suspended in the heavens, a globe of mellow 
light, searching out the secrets of the forest, shining 
white on some fir-tree bleached and dead, throwing 
black and awful looking shadows from the living 



236 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

pines, glimmering on the ragged bark and creamy 
stems of birch-trees, casting the river fringe of 
alders into deepest gloom, tracing bands of silver 
across still reaches of the stream, dancing and 
flickering on the rapids, glittering like diamonds on 
frozen raindrops clinging to the stiffening blades 
of grass, half revealing strange mysterious forms, 
dimly unveiling misty distances, and shedding a 
peaceful softened lustre over the whole scene. 
The night was still. Silence settled down upon 
the earth with the sinking sun — a silence broken 
now and then by the plunge of an otter, the hoot 
of an owl, the rise of some startled wild fowl from 
the sedge, or the snapping of a dead stick under 
the light footfall of some beast of the forest, dis- 
turbed by the occasional splash of the steersman's 
paddle. So, drinking in the beauties of the night, 
we drifted quietly on till the quickening current 
warned us to concentrate all our thoughts upon 
our own safety. The moonlight was so bright, 
and objects were so distinctly visible as long as 
we were in still water, that we anticipated but 
little difficulty in running the rapids, which are 
not the least dangerous by day ; but as soon as 
we got among them the difference between the 
light of even a cloudy day and the clearest night 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 237 

became very evident. Our canoes were deeply 
laden, and so heavy that it was impossible to 
check them in the strength of the stream ; and we 
flew down with such velocity that there was no time 
to pick a channel, and one found oneself right on 
top of some rock or boiling eddy almost at the 
same instant that the eye caught sight of the 
danger. Yet our progress was slow, for in many 
places the river spreads out over broad shallows, 
and there we had to go very cautiously, creeping 
along, holding the canoe back with the paddles, 
grounding now and then, and having to back off 
and seek some deeper place ; and it was long past 
midnight when a distant welcome roar showed we 
were approaching the fall. There we went ashore, 
made a fire, brewed some strong green tea, rested 
for half an hour, and then, having made the short 
" portage," launched our canoes again below the 
fall. As bad luck would have it, the tide was out, 
and we had to pick our way over great flats of 
sand miles in breadth, covered by only two or 
three inches of water, through which a little narrow 
shallow channel went meandering to the sea. It 
was tedious work, and it was four o'clock in the 
morning when we got into deep water, paddled 
alongside the tug, roused up the crew, tumbled up 



238 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

on deck, and turned into our bunks below, 
thoroughly tired out. 

So ended our hunting trip in Newfoundland. 
It was not very successful ; three caribou heads 
and one bearskin were all the trophies we had to 
show. We could not congratulate ourselves upon 
the amount of game killed, but at any rate we did 
not come back empty-handed, and we had seen 
something of the country and had enjoyed a very 
pleasant month in the woods. 

Newfoundland is not much visited by English- 
men. I know not why, for it is the nearest and 
most accessible of all their colonies, and it offers 
a good field for exploration and for sport. The 
interior of a great part of the island, all the northern 
part of it in fact, is almost unknown. The variety 
of game is not great, there are no moose or small 
deer, and bears are, strange to say, very scarce ; 
but caribou are plentiful, and the Newfoundland 
stags are finer by far than any to be found on any 
portion of the continent of North America. The 
caribou, or reindeer, are getting scarce, as they are 
also in every other accessible place. Constant 
travel across the island interferes with their annual 
migration from north to south and from south to 
north. They are no longer to be seen crossing 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 239 

Sandy Pond in vast herds in the spring and fall, 
but no doubt they are still pretty plentiful in 
some remote parts of the country. The shores of 
Newfoundland are indented with numerous and 
excellent harbours, the interior is full of lakes and 
is traversed by many streams navigable for canoes, 
fur is pretty plentiful, wild fowl and grouse 
abundant, and the creeks and rivers are full of 
salmon and trout. 

A great portion of the interior of the island 
consists of barren, swamp, and water, but there are 
large tracts of valuable timber, and of good land 
suitable in every way for farming purposes. The 
climate is very pleasant in summer and the fall ; 
the winters are cold, though not so severe as on 
the mainland, but they are protracted far into 
the spring, through the chilling influence of the 
great mass of Baffin Bay ice that comes down 
the coast about the month of March. For that 
reason, and because the extent of good land is 
limited, and also on account of the proximity of 
Prince Edward Island and the mainland, where 
both soil and climate are better suited to the 
cultivation of crops, Newfoundland will never be 
much of an agricultural country. It has great 
mineral riches, chiefly consisting of copper, which 



240 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

as yet are only partially developed, but the true 
source of its wealth and cause of its prosperity is, 
and always will be, the sea. There is a farm which 
needs no cultivation, a mine which never " peters 
out." The hardy Newfoundland fisherman pur- 
sues his calling not only among his native bays, 
but also along the coasts of the Labrador as far 
north as the entrance into Hudson Straits ; and 
yet, in spite of all his industry and the inex- 
haustible riches of the sea, he leads a poor, and 
too often a miserable life. He is generally deeply 
in debt to the nearest storekeeper, and he is com- 
pelled to look on while others reap the harvest 
drawn from what he, perhaps not unnaturally, 
considers his own seas. The fishery question in 
Newfoundland, and in fact the whole state of the 
country, is in a peculiar condition. 

Most Englishmen probably suppose that New- 
foundland is a dependency of Great Britain ; but 
that idea is only partially true, for the sovereign 
rights of the Crown are recognised only over a 
portion of the island. The fishery rights of 
France, as settled under the treaty of Utrecht in 
171 3, still remain in force. Under that treaty the 
islands of St. Pierre and Miguelon were absolutely 
secured to France to enable her to pursue the 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 241 

cod-fishery of the great banks, and she further 
retained certain vaguely defined rights over that 
part of the island known as the French coast, 
namely, the shore from Cape Ray to Cape John, a 
distance of about 400 miles. The possession of 
the two islands above mentioned is of the greatest 
value to France, and at the same time causes no 
practical inconvenience to the Newfoundlanders. 
It is true that a great industry has passed from us, 
and that the fishery on the great banks is almost 
entirely in the hands of the French, who employ 
about 300 vessels and 10,000 men — half the 
number of ships and seamen engaged in their 
Newfoundland fishery, in that branch of the trade 
alone ; but this is not owing to the convenience 
offered them by the possession of fishing stations 
at St. Pierre, or to any lack of industry and enter- 
prise on the part of our men, but is caused by the 
high bounties given by the French Government, 
which enable their fishermen to undersell our 
people, and renders competition on our part 
useless. The state of things existing on the 
French shore is, however, looked upon as a real 
grievance by the English inhabitants of Newfound- 
land. France claims a strip of land half a mile in 
width along the whole western seaboard of the 



242 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

island. She also, practically speaking, owns half 
the interior of the island. What is the exact 
nature of the rights which she is entitled to exercise 
over the foreshore has never yet been determined. 
It was retained for fishery purposes. The French 
cannot erect permanent buildings of any kind, but 
they may set up temporary huts and drying 
stages, and everything necessary for the accom- 
modation of their men during the fishing season. 
So much is clearly understood. But whether the 
French rights are exclusive ; or whether the 
English may also make use of the shore for fishing 
purposes ; or if not, then whether they are also 
precluded from permanently settling and cultivat- 
ing land, or working minerals on the French shore, 
are doubtful points ; but they will have to be 
decided some day, for the state of things which 
now exists, though it might have been thought 
little of when Newfoundland was a mere store- 
house for salt, and a drying-place for the nets of 
fishermen who paid it an annual visit, will become 
unbearable as the island develops and is settled up. 
It is not the fisheries alone that are concerned. 
If you make a man absolute master of the door, 
it is obvious that he practically controls the room 
within ; and as the natural and only outlet for 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 243 

nearly half the island is through the French shore, 
it is equally certain that the wealth in mines, 
timber, and agricultural produce of many thou- 
sands of square miles must remain undeveloped 
until some satisfactory arrangement is arrived at. 
Thanks to the tendency of treaty makers to scamp 
their work, and to be content to accept vague 
generalities and to leave inconvenient details to 
be dealt with by their successors, a nice muddle 
exists in Newfoundland. The Crown exercises 
sovereign right, and the Colonial Parliament 
extends its rule over a portion only of a British 
colony. And now, to make confusion worse con- 
founded, we have entered into more vague and 
ill-defined engagements with the United States. 
Nobody seems even to know whether American 
fishermen can exercise their rights subject to or 
independent of the local laws binding on the 
natives of Newfoundland. Still less can anyone 
pretend to say what rights, if any, the United 
States acquired on the French shore. The Fishery 
Convention between Great Britain and the United 
States was of course subject to the provisions of 
all existing treaties entered into by France and 
England, and dealing with the fisheries of New- 
foundland, but nobody knows what those pro- 



244 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

visions mean. We may take one view, France a 
second, Newfoundland a third, and the Govern- 
ment of Washington a fourth. Who is to say 
which view is correct ? The result of this con- 
fusion is, that there is no law whatever on the 
French shore. That country is inhabited by 
refugees from other parts of the island, and 
emigrants from Cape Breton or Prince Edward 
Island, and from Nova Scotia and other portions 
of the mainland. These people, many of whom 
had urgent private reasons for thinking a change 
of domicile desirable, have squatted on the land 
and appropriated it — stolen it, in fact, from the 
Crown. Each family or cluster of families forming 
a little settlement, claims the land about them, 
the valley probably of the river on the banks of 
which they dwell, and are fully prepared to uphold 
their claim. It is a delightfully primitive state of 
society. No writs run in that happy land, and 
every man does that which seems best to him in 
his own eyes. Taxes, however, have been raised, 
but when the Colonial Parliament passed a Bill 
giving two members to the district, the Act was 
at once disallowed by the Home Government, as 
interfering with the French rights ; and the 
curious spectacle might have been seen of a popu- 



NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 245 

lation of British subjects in a colony enjoying free 
Parliamentary Government, paying taxes, but 
having no representation whatever. There are 
many other inconveniences arising from the 
peculiar circumstances connected with the French 
shore. The Government is, practically speaking, 
precluded from making grants of Crown lands 
over about 20,000 square miles of country ; nobody 
cares to purchase and clear land or prospect for 
minerals ; millions of feet of lumber have been 
cut from off Crown lands without the payment 
of one farthing, and the rivers are persistently 
barred and the salmon fisheries destroyed. There 
is, in fact, a state of things existing in Newfound- 
land which finds no parallel in any civilised country 
in the world, and which is unknown in any other 
colony of Great Britain. In the midst of a self- 
governing community a population exists owning 
no allegiance to anyone, liable to no laws, practi- 
cally speaking subject to no Government of any 
kind. It is an anomalous and not a very creditable 
state of things. Whether it can be remedied or 
not is altogether another matter, but if possible 
something should be done for our own credit and 
for the sake of our fellow-subjects in Newfoundland. 
Newfoundland has special claims upon us, for 



246 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

though sentiment is generally out of place in 
politics, it cannot be forgotten that Newfoundland 
is England's first-born. That foggy little island, 
although perhaps somewhat of a rough diamond, 
is a valuable jewel, and is the first that was set in 
the imperial crown. 

" There will be changes, of course," said Willie 
Whisper ; " there may be some now, for all I 
know. You will know all about them, for you will 
go back to civilisation. I shall not know, because 
I shall never go back — and it won't matter a bit ! 
That is one of the advantages of living out of the 
world." 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 

TOWARDS August or September, any man 
who has once been in the woods will 
begin to feel stirring within him a restless 
craving for the forest — an intense desire to 
escape from civilisation, a yearning to kick off 
his boots, and with them all the restraints, 
social and material, of ordinary life, and to 
revel once again in the luxury of moccasins, 
loose garments, absolute freedom of mind and 
body, and a complete escape from all the petty 
moral bondages and physical bandages of society. 
To a man who has once tasted of the woods, the 
instinct to return thither is as strong as that of 
the salmon to seek the sea. 

Suppose then that you have determined upon such 
a return and, with me, have arrived at the last house, 
where Indians and canoes are waiting for us. Old 
John Williams, the Indian, beaming with smiles, 
shakes hands, and says, " My soul and body, sir, 

I am glad to see - you back again in New Brunswick. 

247 



248 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

How have you been, sir ? Pretty smart, I hope." 
" Oh, first-rate, thank you, John ; and how are you, 
and how did you get through the winter, and how is 
the farm getting on ? " " Pretty well, sir. I killed 
a fine fat cow moose last December, that kept me 
in meat most all winter ; farm is getting on 
splendid. I was just cutting my oats when I got 
your telegram, and dropped the scythe right there 
in the swarth, and left. I hear there's a sight of 
folks going in the woods this fall ; more callers 
than moose, I guess." And so, after a little con- 
versation with the other Indians, in the course of 
which we discover that though they have been 
there three days, they have never thought of 
patching up the canoes, and have left the baking- 
powder or frying-pan or some equally essential 
article behind, we enter the settler's house, and 
so to supper and bed. 

The first day is not pleasant. The canoes have 
to be carted ten miles to the head of the stream 
we propose descending, and the hay wagon wants 
mending, or the oxen have gone astray. Patience 
and perseverance, however, overcome all these 
and similar difficulties, and at last we are deposited 
on the margin of a tiny stream ; the settler starts 
his patient, stolid oxen, over the scarcely per- 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 249 

ceptible track, saying, " Well, good day, gents ; I 
hope you will make out all right," and we are left 
alone in the forest. 

The first thing to be done is to make a little fire, 
and then with a hot brand melt the gum on the 
seams of the canoes where it may have been 
cracked by the jolting of the wagon, and to patch 
up with resin and pieces of calico, brought for the 
purpose, any holes in the bark. An Indian ascer- 
tains that his canoe is watertight by the simple 
method of applying his lips to every seam that 
appears leaky, and seeing whether the air sucks 
through. This ceremony he religiously performs 
every morning before launching his canoe, and 
every evening when he takes her out of the water. 
It looks as though he were embracing her with 
much affection, and it sounds like it ; but in 
reality it must be an osculatory process more 
useful than agreeable, for a canoe, like an Indian 
squaw, though excellent for carrying burdens, 
cannot be particularly pleasant to kiss. Our canoes 
having successfully passed through this ordeal, 
they are carefully placed upon the water, brush is 
cut and laid along the bottom, the baggage care- 
fully stowed, and away we start at last, three 
canoes with a white man in the bow and a red 



*5o CANADIAN NIGHTS 

man in the the stern of each. Civilisation, with all 
its worries, anxieties, disappointments, heat, dust, 
restraint, luxury, and discomfort, is left behind ; 
before us are the grand old woods, the open 
barrens, stream, lake, and river — perfect freedom, 
lovely cool autumnal weather, three weeks' pro- 
visions, plenty of ammunition, the forest and the 
stream to supply food, and the fishing-rod and 
rifle with which to procure it. 

Down we go, very slowly and carefully, wading 
half the time, lifting stones out of the way, 
tenderly lifting the canoes over shallows, for 
the stream scarcely trickles over its pebbly bed. 
After a while the water deepens and becomes 
still. We take to the paddles and make rapid 
progress. 

" Guess there's a dam pretty handy," says John, 
and so it turns out to be, for after a mile of dead 
water we are brought up by a beaver- dam, showing 
an almost dry river-bed below it. Canoes are 
drawn up and the dam is demolished in a few 
minutes, giving a couple of nights' hard labour 
to the industrious families whose houses we had 
passed a little way above the dam. Then we have 
to wait for half an hour to give the water a start 
of us, and then off again, poling, wading, paddling 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 251 

down the stream, until the sinking sun indicates 
time to camp. 

In a few minutes — for all hands are used to 
the work — canoes are unladen, two tents pitched, 
soft beds of fir-tops spread evenly within them, 
wood cut, and bright fires burning, more for 
cheerfulness than warmth. A box of hard bread 
is opened, tea brewed, and ham set frizzling in the 
pan. Tea is a great thing in the woods. Indians 
are very fond of it ; their plan is to put as much 
tea as they can get hold of into a kettle, and boil it 
until it is nearly strong enough to stand a spoon 
upright in. Of this bitter decoction they drink 
enormous quantities for supper, and immediately 
fall fast asleep, having nothing about them that 
answers to civilised nerves. 

Sunrise finds us up ; breakfast is soon over, 
tents are struck, canoes loaded, and we are on our 
way down the deepening stream. It is a river 
now, with lots of trout in the shallows, and salmon 
in the deep pools. About noon we turn sharp off 
to the eastward up a little brawling brook, forcing 
our way with some difficulty up its shallow rapids 
till it gets too dry, and we are compelled to go 
ashore and to " carry " over to the lake whither 
we are bound. One of us stops behind to make a 



252 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

fire, boil the kettle, and prepare the dinner, while 
the Indians swing each a canoe on to his shoulders 
and start through the woods. In three trips 
everything is carried across, and we embark again 
upon a lovely lake. 

The " carry " was not long, only about half a 
mile, and there was a good blazed trail, so that 
it was a comparatively easy job ; but under the 
most favourable circumstances this portaging, or 
carrying, is very hard work. It is hard enough to 
have to lift eighty or one hundred pounds on your 
back. It is worse when you have to carry the 
burden half a mile, and get back as quickly as you 
can for another load ; and when you have to crawl 
under fallen limbs, climb over prostrate logs, 
balance yourself on slippery tree-trunks, flounder 
through bogs, get tangled up in alder swamps, 
force yourself through branches which slap you 
viciously in the face, with a big load on your back, 
a hot sun overhead, and several mosquitoes on 
your nose. I know of nothing more calculated 
to cause an eruption of bad language, a consider- 
able gain in animal heat, and a corresponding loss 
of temper. But it has to be done, and the best 
way is to take it coolly, and, if you cannot do that, 
to take it as coolly as you can. 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 253 

Out on the lake it was blowing a gale, and right 
against us. We had to kneel in the bottom of the 
canoes, instead of sitting on the thwarts, and 
vigorously ply our paddles. The heavily laden 
craft plunged into the waves, shipping water at 
every jump, and sending the spray flying into our 
faces. Sometimes we would make good way, and 
then, in a squall, we would not gain an inch, and 
be almost driven on shore ; but after much labour 
we gained the shelter of a projecting point, and 
late in the evening reached our destination, and 
drew up our canoes for the last time. 

While others make camp, old John wanders off 
with his head stooped, and eyes fixed on the 
ground, according to his custom. The old man 
always looks as if he had lost something and was 
searching for it. Indeed, this is very often the 
case. I remember, after watching him one day 
prying and wandering about an old lumber camp, 
asking him what on earth he was doing. " Oh, 
nothing, sir," he answered ; " I hid a clay pipe 
here, somewhere — let me see, about thirty-five 
years ago, and I was looking for it.'/' After dark 
he comes quietly in, sits down by the fire and 
lights his pipe, and, after smoking a little while, 
observes, " Moose been here, sir, not long ago. 



254 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

I saw fresh tracks, a cow and a calf close handy 
just around that little point of woods." Another 
silence, and then he looks up with a smile of the 
most indescribable cunning and satisfaction, and 
adds, " I think, mebbe, get a moose pretty soon 
if we have a fine night." " Well, I hope so, John," 
say I. " Yes, sir, I see where he rub his horn, 
sir ; you know the little meadow just across the 
hardwood ridge ? why, where we saw the big 
cariboo track three years ago. He's been fighting 
the bushes there. My soul and body, a big bull, 
sir, great works, tracks seven inches long." And 
so we fall to talking about former hunting ex- 
cursions till bedtime, or rather sleepy time, comes, 
and we curl up in our blankets, full of hopes for 
the future, which may or may not be disappointed. 
Moose-calling commences about the 1st of 
September and ends about the 15th of October. 
A full moon occurring between the middle and 
end of September is the best of all times. The 
best plan in calling is to fix upon a permanent 
camp and make little expeditions of two or three 
days' duration from it, returning to rest and get 
fresh supplies. Then you enjoy the true luxury 
of hunting. Then you feel really and thoroughly 
independent and free. The Indian carries your 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 255 

blanket, your coat, a little tea, sugar, and bread, a 
kettle, and two tin pannikins. The hunter has 
enough to do to carry himself, his rifle, ammunition, 
a small axe, hunting-knife, and a pair of field- 
glasses. Thus accoutred, clad in a flannel shirt and 
home-spun continuations, moose-hide moccasins 
on your feet, your trousers tucked into woollen 
socks, your arms unencumbered with that useless 
article, a coat, you plunge into the woods, the sun 
your guide in clear weather, your pocket-compass 
if it is cloudy, the beasts and birds and fishes your 
companions ; and wander through the woods at 
will, sleeping where the fancy seizes you, " calling " 
if the nights are calm, or still hunting on a windy 
day. Calling is the most fascinating, disappointing, 
exciting of all sports. You may be lucky at once 
and kill your moose the first night you go out, 
perhaps at the very first call you make. You may 
be weeks and weeks, perhaps the whole calling 
season, without getting a shot. Moose-calling is 
simple enough in theory ; in practice it is im- 
mensely difficult of application. It consists, as I 
explained the other night, in imitating the cry of 
the animal with a hollow cone made of birch bark, 
and endeavouring by this means to call up a moose 
near enough to get a shot at him by moonlight or 



256 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

in the early morning. He will come straight up 
to you, within a few yards — walk right over you 
almost — answering, " speaking," as the Indians 
term it, as he comes along, if nothing happens to 
scare him ; but that is a great if. So many un- 
avoidable accidents occur. The great advantage 
of moose-calling is, that it takes one out in the 
woods during the most beautiful period of the 
whole year — when Nature, tired with the labour of 
spring and summer, puts on her holiday garments, 
and rests luxuriously before falling into the deep 
sleep of winter. The great heats are past, though 
the days are still warm and sunny ; the nights are 
calm and peaceful, the mornings cool, the evenings 
so rich in colouring that they seem to dye the 
whole woodland with sunset hues, for the maple, 
oak, birch, and beech trees glow with a gorgeous- 
ness unknown to similar trees at home. If the 
day is windy, you can track the moose and cariboo, 
or perchance a bear, through the deep shady 
recesses of the forest. On a still day, you may 
steal noiselessly over the smooth surface of some 
lake, or along a quiet reach of still river water, 
fringed with alder, winding tortuously through 
natural meadows, or beneath a ridge crowned with 
birch and maples, whose feathery branches and 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 257 

crimson leaves are so clearly reflected on a surface 
perfectly placid that you seem to be gliding over 
a forest of submerged trees. Or you may indulge 
to perfection in that most luxurious pastime — 
doing nothing. I know a lovely place for that, 
on a hunting-ground I used to frequent, a little 
island of woods about a quarter of a mile from 
camp, with a tall pine-tree in the middle, which 
was kind enough to arrange its branches in such 
a way that it was very easy to climb. Thither I 
would go on lazy days, when tired with hunting, 
with my gun and a book, and, leaning against its 
friendly trunk, read till I was tired of literature, 
and then climb up in the breezy branches and look 
out far and wide over the barrens on either side. 
Many a cariboo have I seen from thence, and shot 
him after an exciting stalk out on the plain. 

Let us imagine a party of three men to burst 
out of the thick woods on to a little open space, 
or barren, hot and tired, about four o'clock on a 
fine October day. Before them lies a still deep 
reach of a little river, fringed on the near side 
with brown alders ; on the opposite side lies a 
piled-up ragged heap of loose grey granite blocks, 
with one solitary dead pine-tree, stretching out its 
gaunt, bare, shrivelled limbs against the clear sky. 



258 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

Just beyond is a little clump of pines, and all 
around a grey meadow, quite open for some fifty 
yards or so, then dotted with occasional unhappy- 
looking firs, sad and forlorn, with long tresses 
of grey moss hanging from their stunted limbs. 
The trees grow closer and closer together, and 
become more vigorous in appearance till they 
merge into the unbroken forest beyond. Sup- 
posing that I formed one of the party, I should 
immediately take measures to make myself com- 
fortable for the night, for I am of a luxurious 
habit. I should set one Indian, say John Williams, 
to look for water, which he would find by scooping 
a hole in the moss with his hands, into which cavity 
a black and muddy liquid would presently flow, 
not inviting to look at, but in an hour's time it 
will have settled clear enough to drink — in the 
dark. I and the other Indian, say Noel Glode, 
would turn to and make camp. That is easily done 
when you know how — so is making a watch. You 
clear away a space beneath some tree, making it 
nice and level, and set up a shelter on whichever 
side you apprehend the wind will come from. 
You stick some poles or young fir-trees into the 
ground, prop them up with other trees, lash a pole 
horizontally along them, with a bit of string if you 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 259 

have it, or the flexible root of a fir if you have not. 
Cut down a lot of pine branches, and thatch the 
framework with them till you have formed a little 
lean-to, which will keep off a good deal of wind and 
all the dew. Then you strew the ground thickly 
with fir-tops or bracken, gather a lot of dry wood 
in case you want to make a fire, and all is ready for 
the night. 

In a scene very like that, many a year ago now, 
I spent the last two nights of the calling season. 
It was nearly sundown before our work was 
over, and, leaving Noel to finish camp, I sent 
John to a tree-top to look out, and sat down myself 
on a rock at a little distance to smoke the calumet 
of peace. These " barrens " are very melancholy 
at the decline of day, intensely sad, yet in their 
own way beautiful, full of delicate colouring. The 
grey, dead, tufted grass lies matted by the margin 
of the stream, over which brown alders droop, 
looking at their own images in the water, perfectly 
still, save when some otter, beaver, or musk-rat 
plunges sullenly in and disturbs it for a moment. 
The ground, carpeted with cariboo moss, white as 
ivory but with purple roots, is smooth, save for 
a few detached rugged masses of granite covered 
with grey or black lichens. An occasional dwarfed 



260 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

pine, encumbered with hanging festoons of moss, 
strives to grow in the wet soil ; and on drier spots, 
two or three tall, naked, dead firs, that have been 
burned in some bygone fire, look pale, like ghosts 
of trees in the deepening twilight. 

Beyond all, the forest rises, gloomy, black, 
mysterious. Nature looks sad, worn-out, dying ; 
as though lamenting the ancient days and the 
inevitable approach of the white man's axe. Well 
in harmony with her melancholy mood are the 
birds and beasts that roam those solitudes, and 
haunt the woods and streams. The hooting owl, 
the loon or great northern diver, that startles the 
night with its unearthly scream, are weird uncanny 
creatures ; the cariboo or reindeer, which was 
contemporary with many extinct animals on this 
globe — mammoths, cave bears, and others — and 
which has seen curious sights among aboriginal 
men, has a strange look as if belonging to some 
older world and some other time, with his fantastic 
antlers and great white mane ; and so, too, has 
the huge ungainly moose, that shares with him 
the forest and the swamps. 

I had not, however, much time to indulge in 
reverie, for scarcely had I sat down before I heard 
old John call gently like a moose to attract my 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 261 

attention. Now it must be borne in mind that 
when hunting you never call to anyone like a 
human being, for to do so might scare away game ; 
but you grunt like a moose, or, if you prefer it, 
hoot like an owl, or make any other sound emitted 
by one of the brute creation. I crept up quickly, 
and in obedience to John's whisper gave him the 
moose-caller, and, following the direction of his 
eyes, saw a small bull moose slowly crossing the 
barren some four or five hundred yards to our 
left. At the first sound from John's lips, the 
moose stopped dead short, and looked round, 
then moved a few steps towards us and stopped 
again. We watched him for some time. He was 
evidently timid, and it seemed doubtful whether 
he would come up ; and, as it was growing dark, 
Noel and I started to try and steal round the 
edge of the wood in order to cut him off before 
he could get into the timber and cross our tracks. 
We had not gone a hundred yards before we heard 
another bull coming up from a different direction 
through the forest, answering John's call. We 
could tell by the sound that he was a large one, 
and that he was coming up rapidly. The small 
bull heard him also, and stopped. We were now, 
of a truth, in a dilemma. There was a moose in 



262 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

sight of us, but it was ten to one that he would 
smell our tracks and get scared before we could 
reach him. There was a larger moose coming 
through the woods, but where he would emerge 
it was impossible to say ; and, to make matters 
worse, it was rapidly getting dark. The difficulty 
was soon settled, for the smaller moose moved 
on again towards the woods, crossed our track, 
snuffed us, and started off across the barren at a 
trot ; so we had to turn our attention to the 
larger one. He came on boldly ; we could hear 
him call two or three times in succession, and then 
stop dead silent for a few minutes to listen, and 
then on again, speaking. We planted ourselves 
right in his way, just on the edge of the woods, 
and, crouching close to the ground, waited for him. 
Presently we heard his hoarse voice close to us, 
and the crackling of the bushes as he passed through 
them ; then silence fell again, and we heard no- 
thing but the thumping of our hearts ; another 
advance, and he stopped once more, within appa- 
rently about fifty yards of us. After a long, almost 
insupportable pause, he came on again ; we could 
hear his footsteps, we could hear the grass rustling, 
we could hear him breathing, we could see the 
bushes shaking, but we could not make out even 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 263 

the faintest outline of him in the dark. Again he 
stopped, and our hearts seemed to stand still also 
with expectation ; another step must have brought 
him out almost within reach of me, when suddenly 
there was a tremendous crash ! He had smelt us, 
and was off with a cracking of dead limbs, rattling 
of horns, smashing of branches, which made the 
woods resound again. Disappointed we were, but 
not unhappy, for the first duty of the hunter is 
to drill himself into that peculiar frame of mind 
which enables a man to exult when he is success- 
ful, and to accept ill-luck and defeat without 
giving way to despondency. 

It was by this time pitch dark, and there was no 
use therefore in calling any more. So in a few 
minutes we were seated round a bright cheerful 
little fire ; the kettle was boiled, and we consoled 
ourselves with what story-books call " a frugal 
meal " of bread and tea, and then reclining on 
our beds of bracken, with our backs to the fire, 
smoked and chatted till sleep began to weigh our 
eyelids down/ I have observed that in most 
accounts of travel and hunting adventure people 
are represented as lying with their feet to the 
fire. That is a great blunder. Always keep your 
shoulders and back warm, and you will be warm 



264 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

all over. If there are a number of people round 
one fire, and it is necessary to lie stretched out 
like the spokes of a wheel, with the fire representing 
the axle, it is advisable, no doubt, to lie with your 
head outwards, for it is better to toast your heels 
than to roast your head ; but if there is room to 
lie lengthways, always do so, and keep your back 
to the fire. Of course we talked about the moose 
we had so nearly killed. " My soul and body, 
sir," says John, " never see such luck in all my 
life ; most as bad as we had two years ago when 
we was camped away down east by the head of 
Martin's River. You remember, sir, the night we 
saw the little fire in the woods close by, when 
there was no one there to make it. Very curious 
that was ; can't make that out at all. What was 
it, do you think ? " 

" Well, John," I said, " I suppose it must have 
been a piece of dead wood shining." 

" Yes, sir ; but it did not look like that ; most 
too red and flickering for dead wood." 

" Perhaps ghosts making a fire, John," said I. 

" Yes, sir, mebbe ; some of our people believes 
in ghosts, sir ; very foolish people, some Indians." 

" Don't you, John ? " 

" Oh no, sir ; I never seed no ghosts. I have 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 265 

seen and heard some curious things, though. I 
was hunting once with two gentlemen near Rocky 
River — you know the place well, sir. We were all 
sitting in the camp ; winter time, sir ; pretty 
late, about bedtime. The gentlemen were drink- 
ing their grog, and we was smoking and talking, 
when we heard someone walking, coming up to 
the camp. ' Holloa ! ' says one of the gentlemen, 
6 who can this be at this time of night ? ' Well, 
sir, we stopped talking, and we all heard the man 
walk up to the door. My soul, sir, we could hear 
his moccasins crunching on the hard dry snow quite 
plain. He walked up to the door, but did not 
open it, did not speak, did not knock. So, after a 
little, one of us looked out — nobody there ; nobody 
there at all, sir. Next morning there was not a 
track on the snow — not a track — and no snow fell 
in the night. Well, sir, we stayed there a fort- 
night, and most every night we would hear a man 
in moccasins walk up to the door and stop ; and if 
we looked there was no one there, and he left no 
tracks in the snow. What was it, do you think, 
sir ? " 

" Don't know, John, I am sure," I said, " unless 
it was some strange effect of wind in the trees." 

" Well, sir, I seed a curious thing once. I was 



266 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

hunting with a gentleman — from the old country, 
I think he was — my word, sir, a long time ago, 
mebbe thirty years or more. My soul and body, 
sir, what a sight of moose there was in the woods 
in those days ! and the cariboo run in great herds 
then ; all failing now, sir, all failing. We were 
following cariboo, right fresh tracks in the snow ; 
we were keeping a sharp look-out, expecting to 
view them every minute, when I looked up and 
saw a man standing right between us and where 
the cariboo had gone. He was not more than 
two hundred yards off — I could see him quite 
plain. He had on a cloth cap and a green blanket- 
coat with a belt round the middle — not a leather 
belt like we use, sir, but a woollen one like what 
the Frenchmen uses in Canada. There was braid 
down the seams of his coat and round the cuffs. 
I could see the braid quite plain. He had no gun, 
nor axe, nor nothing in his hands, but just stood 
there with his hand on his hip, that way, right in 
the path, doing nothing. ' Our hunting all over, 
sir,' I said to the gentleman. ' We may as well 
go home.' ' Why, what is the matter, John ? ' 
says he. ' Why, look at the man there right in 
the track ; he's scared our cariboo, I guess.' 
Well, sir, he was very mad, the gentleman was, 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 267 

and was for turning right round and going home ; 
but I wanted to go up and speak to the man. 
He stood there all the time — never moved. I 
kind of bowed, nodded my head to him, and he 
kind of nodded his head, bowed just the same way 
to me. Well, I started to go up to him, when up 
rose a great fat cow moose between him and me. 
' Look at the moose, Captain ! ' I said. ' Shoot 
her ! ' ' Good heavens, John ! ' he says, ' if I do, 
I shall shoot the man too ! ' ' No, no, sir, never 
mind,' I cried, ' fire at the moose.' Well, sir, 
he up with the gun, fired, and downed the moose. 
She just ran a few yards, pitched forward, and fell 
dead. When the smoke cleared off, the man was 
gone ; could not see him nowheres. ' My soul 
and body ! what's become of the man, Captain ? ' 
I says. ' Dunno, John ; perhaps he is down too,' 
says he. ' Well, sir,' says I, ' you stop here, and I 
will go and look ; mebbe he is dead, mebbe not 
quite dead yet.' Well, I went up to the place, 
and there was nothing there — nothing but a little 
pine-tree, no man at all. I went all round, sir — 
no tracks, no sign of a man anywhere on the snow. 
What was it, do you think, sir, we saw ? " 

" Well, John," I replied, " I think that was a 
curious instance of refraction." " Oh, mebbe," 



268 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

says John ; " guess I will take a little nap now — 
moon get up by and by ; " and in another instant 
he was fast asleep. Indians have a wonderful 
faculty for going to sleep. They seem to shut 
themselves up at will, with a snap like slamming 
down the lid of a box with a spring, and are fast 
asleep in a second ; and there they will lie, snoring 
and shivering with cold until you touch or call 
them, and then they are wide awake in an in- 
stant, as if they pressed some knob concealed in 
their internal mechanism, and flew suddenly open 
again. 

I remember seeing a curious instance of re- 
fraction once myself. We were paddling home 
one evening, old John and I, along a still deep 
reach of dead water, gliding dreamily over a surface 
literally as smooth as a polished mirror. It was 
evening, and the sun was only just clear of the 
tree-tops on the western side. Happening to look 
up, I saw on the eastern side a shadow, a stooping 
form, glide across the trees about twenty or thirty 
feet from the ground and disappear. It looked 
very ghost-like, and for an instant it startled me. 
In a few seconds it reappeared, and, the trees 
growing thicker together and affording a better 
background, I saw the shadows plainly — two 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 269 

figures in a canoe gliding along in the air, the 
shadows of John and myself, cast up at an ob- 
tuse angle from the surface of the water by the 
almost level rays of the setting sun. 

The Indians soon were comfortably sleeping, 
and had wandered off into the land of dreams ; 
but I, my nature being vitiated by many years of 
civilisation, could not so easily yield to the wooing 
of the drowsy god. For some time I lay awake, 
blinking lazily at the fire, watching flickering forms 
and fading faces in the glowing embers, speculat- 
ing idly on the fortunes of the Red Indian race, 
and on the destinies of the vast continent around 
me — in memory revisiting many lovely scenes, 
and going over again in thought the hunting 
adventures and canoeing voyages of former days. 
The palmy days of canoeing are past and gone. 
Time was when fleets of large birch-bark canoes, 
capable of carrying some tons weight, navigated 
the waters of the St. Lawrence, of the Ottawa, and 
of the great lakes to the mouths of different rivers 
on the north shore of Lake Superior, where they are 
met by smaller canoes arriving from the shores of 
the Frozen Ocean, from unnamed lakes and un- 
known rivers, from unexplored regions, from 
countries inhabited by wild animals and fur- 



270 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

bearing beasts — districts as large as European 
countries lying unnoticed in the vast territories 
of British North America. 

All that is changed, though a great trade is still 
carried on by means of these primitive but most 
useful and graceful boats. Steamers ply upon 
the lakes and ascend the rivers, the country is 
being rapidly opened up, wrested from wild nature, 
and turned into a habitation fit for civilised man. 
One of the pleasantest canoe voyages I ever made 
was from Fort William, at the mouth of the 
Kaministiquoya, to Fort Garry, situated close to 
the junction of the Assineboin with the Red 
River of the North, and near to the shores of Lake 
Winnipeg. That was but a few years ago ; but 
how all that country has changed since then ! 
Winnipeg was a very small place then, scarcely 
known to the outside world. I remember I met a 
family in the steamer on Lake Superior, a lady and 
gentleman and their children, and when in the 
course of the conversation it came out that they 
were going to Winnipeg, I felt almost as much 
astonished as if they had told me they were on 
their way to spend the summer at their country 
residence at the North Pole. Now Winnipeg has 
become a flourishing town. The trading post of 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 271 

Fort Garry is submerged and overwhelmed by a 
mass of civilisation ; Manitoba is a province, and 
a growing and prosperous one. One of the finest, 
if not the very finest, agricultural districts in the 
world has been opened up to man. It is a district 
capable of producing the choicest wheat in practi- 
cally limitless quantities. It is blessed with many 
advantages, but it also labours under certain dis- 
advantages which must not be overlooked. Three 
great rivers flow into Lake Winnipeg — the Red 
River, the Saskatchewan, and the Winnipeg. The 
latter river is magnificent so far as scenery is con- 
cerned, but it is full of dangerous rapids, and will 
never be of any great commercial value to the 
country. The Red River is navigable for steamers 
for a distance of six hundred miles. One hundred 
and eighty-five miles only of its course lie in 
British territory ; the remainder of the distance 
it traverses the state of Minnesota. The land it 
drains is rich alluvial prairie. At a distance of 
forty miles from its mouth it receives the waters 
of the Assineboin, a river flowing entirely through 
British territory ; it is said to be navigable for 
three hundred miles. The two Saskatchewans rise 
in the Rocky Mountains about thirty miles apart, 
and pursue slightly diverging courses, till they 



272 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

become separated by a distance of nearly three 
hundred miles. They then gradually converge 
again until they join together at a distance of 
about eight hundred miles from their head-waters, 
and then after a united course of nearly three 
hundred miles, discharge their mingled waters 
into Lake Winnipeg. With the exception of the 
last few miles of their course, these rivers are 
navigable for steamers, the one — that is, the North 
Saskatchewan — for one thousand, and the South 
branch for eight hundred miles. Between them, 
and on each side of them, lies the fertile belt, a 
virgin soil of any depth. No forests encumber 
the land. The farmer has but to turn up the soil 
lying ready waiting for the seed. It is a mistake to 
suppose that all this great Western country is good 
land ; that is nonsense. There is good and there 
is bad ; but it is true that there is little bad and 
much good. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands 
of acres of the best land in the world are lying 
there idle, waiting for man. From the southern 
boundary of the United States to the South 
Saskatchewan, there is no such fertile tract as 
this. It is like a huge oasis lying between the 
parched pastures of the south and the frozen 
solitudes of the icy north. Nor is the wheat- 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 273 

growing country confined to trie great tract that 
drains into Lake Winnipeg. If anyone will look 
at the isothermal line upon a map, he will find 
that it takes a tremendous sweep northward a 
little to the west of the centre of the continent, 
and includes the great Peace River valley, a portion 
of the Athabaska district, and of the valley of the 
Mackenzie River. The day will come when wheat 
will be grown in that country within a very few 
degrees of the Arctic Circle. Nature has been 
bountiful to these north-western provinces. The 
warm breezes from the west waft them prosperity, 
but it is their northern position which proves the 
only drawback to them. The chief difficulty is a 
difficulty of communication. The value of land, 
in a country where land is plentiful and cheap, 
depends upon the cost of transporting the produce 
of the soil to market. The great wheat-producing 
region I have described is at present tapped by a 
line of railway running south through the United 
States. That cannot be called a natural, or 
altogether a proper outlet. It is not worth while 
anticipating any serious difficulty between the 
United States and the British Empire. We may 
for practical purposes dismiss that contingency 
from our calculations, as one most unlikely to 



274 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

occur. It is becoming more and more improbable 
every year as the two nations learn to understand 
and appreciate each other better. But, at the 
same time, it is highly inexpedient that the produce 
of any portion of the British Empire should, in 
seeking its natural market in other portions of the 
same Empire, be compelled to pass through the 
territories of another nation. When that produce 
consists of the first necessary of life, the inex- 
pediency is increased. 

Another line of railway has now been con- 
structed for the carriage of grain from Manitoba 
to the north shore of Lake Superior, whence it can 
be transported by ships or barges over the broad 
waters of the great lakes, and down the majestic 
current of the St. Lawrence to the ocean. But on 
this line also there is a difficulty, an obstruction. 
The waters of that inland sea, Lake Superior, pour 
themselves into Lake Huron in a boiling, tumul- 
tuous flood down the rapid known as the Sault 
St. Mary. This rapid is quite impassable, and 
ships go round it through a canal which is in the 
State of Michigan. This is a disadvantage to the 
route, but not a very great one, for the canal is 
only a few miles in length. A convention, I be- 
lieve, exists between the Canadian and United 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 275 

States Governments, regulating the rates to be 
charged upon it, and, moreover, there is no 
engineering difficulty whatever in constructing a 
canal on the British side of the river. It is true 
that the canal is closed by ice during the winter 
months, but free navigation exists during the 
greater part of the year, and the St. Lawrence is 
also closed during the winter. Anyone looking at 
a map of British North America will say at once, 
" But neither of these routes is the natural geo- 
graphical road in and out of this country. The 
Hudson's Bay Company long ago discovered and 
made use of the proper outlet, and the grain of 
thousands and thousands of fertile acres will find 
its way to London by the same means, and over 
the same roads, as the skins of wild animals have 
been brought to that market." I wish I could 
think that was true. Then indeed would Manitoba 
and the great North-West be the most favoured 
country in the world — the earthly paradise of the 
agriculturist. 

Hudson's Bay and the river flowing into it from 
Lake Winnipeg form the natural gateway to the 
great North-West, and Lake Winnipeg is the 
natural centre of distribution and collection for a 
large portion of that vast region. But there is an 



276 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

icy bolt drawn across the door, barring trie way. 
Lake Winnipeg is a huge lake, an inland sea of 
some three hundred miles in length and fifty or 
sixty in breadth. It receives the drainage of the 
fertile belt through navigable rivers, and it sends 
off that drainage towards the North through a 
large river — the Nelson — which pours its waters 
into Hudson's Bay. The Nelson is, in fact, the 
continuation of the Saskatchewan. Lake Winnipeg 
is in the very centre of the continent. If ocean 
steamers could penetrate to that lake, it would be 
like despatching a steamer direct from the port of 
London to the grain elevators of Chicago. It 
would be even better, for a vessel loading in Lake 
Winnipeg could take in her grain at the mouth of 
rivers penetrating to the very base of the Rocky 
Mountains, navigable for a thousand miles through 
the richest land of the continent. Cannot this 
magnificent water system be utilised ? I fear not. 
There are two obstacles which I am afraid will 
prove insurmountable. These are, the navigation 
of Hudson's Straits, and the navigation of the 
Nelson. Of Hudson's Bay and Straits we can 
speak with some confidence, for the Hudson's Bay 
Company have for a long period sent two, and 
occasionally three, ships every year to their two 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 277 

principal posts on Hudson's Bay — namely, Moose 
Factory, situated at the head of James Bay, the 
most southern indentation of Hudson's Bay, and 
York Factory, which is placed close to the mouth 
of the Nelson River. 

Hudson's Bay is open for four or five months 
in the year. But Hudson's Straits are not, and 
there is little comfort in having open water inside 
in the Bay when you cannot reach it, and it is a 
poor consolation to know that the warm ocean is 
close to you outside when you cannot get out. 
There are years in which the straits are not open 
for more than two or three weeks. Ships have 
occasionally failed to force a passage through the 
Straits, and ships have been detained in the Bay 
all the summer, unable to work their way out. 

The average duration of open navigation of the 
Straits is about five or six weeks in the year ; you 
cannot depend upon more than that, though they 
may be open for nearly as many months. Of 
course the substitution of steam vessels for sailing 
ships would make considerable difference ; but, 
even supposing steamers adapted to the purpose 
to be used, it must, I fear, be conceded that the 
navigation would be precarious, and the open 
season short. Moreover, the navigation is difficult 



278 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

and peculiar at the best of times, and it is doubtful 
whether ordinary steam vessels could be used, 
and problematical whether a trade could possibly 
be made to pay, requiring especially constructed 
ships, which would be idle for eight or ten months 
of the year. So much for the Straits — now as to 
the rivers. 

Formerly the Hudson's Bay Company trans- 
ported all the peltry — that is, furs and skins — 
collected over a vast area, to Lake Winnipeg. 
Over that lake it was taken in large boats to 
Norway House, at the head of the Nelson, and 
down that river to York Factory at the mouth of 
it. And all supplies, all the necessaries and all the 
luxuries of life, all that white men and Indians 
required, were transported up the Nelson to 
Norway House, thence carried to various parts 
of the lake, and then disseminated through the 
land by boats, canoes, and dog sleighs. 

Some time ago the Company abandoned the 
Nelson, adopted Hayes River, and have used that 
route ever since. Hayes River is not an outlet 
of Lake Winnipeg. Properly speaking, it is a 
small river flowing into Hudson's Bay close to the 
mouth of the Nelson. But the name, Hayes 
River, is generally given to that series of lakes 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 279 

and streams which constitutes the route for canoe 
and boat navigation between Norway House on 
Lake Winnipeg and York Factory on the sea. In 
referring to the line of water communication at 
present in use between Lake Winnipeg and Hudson's 
Bay, I shall therefore call it Hayes River. The 
Hudson's Bay Company use large boats capable 
of carrying ten tons burden ; so I assume that 
Hayes River is the better river of the two, and the 
more easily navigated by vessels of any size. 

Hayes River has a course of somewhere about three 
hundred miles in length. In the course of that three 
hundred miles there are twenty or thirty portages. 
That is to say, obstructions occur at average inter- 
vals of ten or fifteen miles, so serious as to necessi- 
tate the immense labour of dragging over land boats 
capable of carrying ten tons, and the merchandise 
within them. That does not sound like a water- 
way that could be navigated by steamers of any 
kind — as a matter of fact, Hayes River is a mere 
boat route. There remains, then, the great Nelson 
River, the outlet of Lake Winnipeg. The Nelson 
or Saskatchewan is a first-class river in point of 
size and volume of water, but it is not navigable. 
Although the average depth of water for about 
ninety miles is said to be twenty feet, yet it is 



280 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

stated that there is only ten feet of water at the 
head of the tideway ; a fact which of course 
entirely precludes ocean steamers from ascending 
the river. For vessels drawing less than ten feet 
it is navigable for about a hundred miles ; but at 
that distance from the sea there is a rapid or fall 
that entirely puts a stop to navigation, and renders 
it impossible for vessels of light draught to descend 
the river from the lake to the sea. 

I do not suppose that either the Nelson or Hayes 
River has ever been thoroughly and accurately 
surveyed, sounded, or reported on by engineers 
with a view to future navigation ; and so wonderful 
is the way in which man wars against nature by 
means of engineering skill, that I should be sorry 
to assert that this route is now, and always will 
remain, impracticable. But I know that it presents 
great, and I fear it presents insuperable, difficulties. 
It is certain that the Nelson, a river which, as far as 
the volume of water discharged by it is concerned, 
ought to be navigable for large ships, is rendered 
useless and impassable by obstructions which 
must be of a serious nature, seeing that the 
Hudson's Bay Company prefer Hayes River to it. 
Hayes River is merely a boat route, and not even 
a good one, for it contains, as I have before stated, 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 281 

twenty or thirty portages in some three hundred 
miles. The fact, therefore, that it is better for 
large boats than the Nelson, does not lead one to 
form a very favourable estimate of the latter river. 

Even without this direct communication by sea 
with Europe, A/Ianitoba and the western fertile 
tract must become one of the most prosperous 
regions of the earth ; and I think it affords a 
better opening for farming industry at the present 
time than any other district on the globe. If this 
route proved practicable, the prosperity of the 
country would be enormously increased ; and it 
is to be sincerely hoped that the sanguine views 
of some writers on the subject may not prove 
fallacious. But until they are demonstrated to be 
correct, it would be unwise to attach too much 
importance to them. Disappointed immigrants 
form but a dejected and heart-broken population, 
and the strength of a young country was never 
healthily fostered by delusive hopes, mistaken 
statements, or thoughtless exaggeration. 

I have alluded to this vast fertile region only in 
connection with the advantages it offers to the 
grower of wheat, but it must not on that account 
be supposed that it is unfitted in any way for the 
raising of stock. On the contrary, it is a vast 



282 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

natural pasture-land — the true home and breeding 
ground of the American bison, commonly called 
the buffalo. Formerly a vast herd of buffalo, 
numbering many millions, wandered through the 
continent, their range extending from as high as 
6o° north down to the southern parts of Texas. 
In winter they moved towards the south, migrating 
again northward with summer-time. 

This vast herd is now entirely broken up, and 
buffalo are disappearing out of the land. All the 
Indians on the plains subsist by means of them, 
living on their flesh, and making houses of their 
skins. Besides the thousands killed by Indians 
for food and robes, incredible numbers are slain 
every year by white hunters for the hides and 
horns. Owing to this indiscriminate slaughter, 
and to the fact that their pastures are cut by 
railways and intrusive settlements, the herd has 
become permanently divided into three. One 
band ranges in British territory about the Saskat- 
chewan, west of Red River settlement ; the second 
over the middle western Territories about the 
Platte and Republican Rivers ; while the third, or 
southern herd, roams through Texas and the 
neighbouring States. As these the indigenous 
cattle of the country disappear, their place is to a 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 283 

certain extent taken by the cattle originally im- 
ported from Europe. The shaggy-headed, short- 
horned bison passes from the scene, and with it 
the painted whooping savage, naked himself, and 
on a naked horse pursuing his natural prey with 
bow or spear ; and in their place come herds 
of long-horned, savage-tempered, Spanish cattle, 
tended and driven by men wild to look at, strange 
of speech, and picturesque in garment, but white 
men and very different beings from the Indian 
hunters that came before them. Though Texas 
may be called the home of the Spanish cattle, 
and though vast unnumbered herds pasture on 
its luxuriant grasses, yet States lying further to 
the north are more suitable for cattle-breeding 
purposes. A mountainous country, affording, as 
it does, shelter in winter and some variety of 
temperature, is better adapted for cattle than the 
plains, which are either parched by the summer's 
sun, or covered with the snows of winter. 

On the great plains extending west from Mani- 
toba to the Rocky Mountains, the snow does not 
lie so deep as it does in districts within the same 
degrees of latitude, but further to the south, and 
consequently that country is well adapted by 
nature for stock-raising. But until means of cheap 



284 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

transportation are provided, it cannot compete 
with other and less naturally favoured regions ; 
it cannot hope to vie with Colorado, Wyoming, and 
the other States and Territories that include the 
foot-hills and fertile plains, packs, and valleys 
that lie within the eastern ranges of the Rocky 
Mountains. 

So, while the Indians slept, I strayed in thought 
over hunting-grounds of the past, and marvelled 
at the changes that had taken place and the greater 
changes yet to come, till my musings were inter- 
rupted by old John, who awoke, sat up, shook his 
long hair out of his eyes, pulled his old black clay 
pipe out of his belt, placed a glowing ember in the 
bowl, and commenced smoking, with that ex- 
pressive sound, half sigh, half suck, that tells of 
perfect satisfaction. " Why, old man, what is 
the matter," I said ; " have you been dreaming ? " 
" Yes, sir, I dreamed very hard, very hard indeed, 
very good dream too ; see moose soon, I know — 
big one too. I see a big ship, with a big hull all 
black, oh black as pitch. I had a job to get on 
board, but I did get on board. It is all right, 
you'll get one pretty soon. My shoulders and 
legs ache awful bad too, sir. I shall be carrying 
a heavy load of meat soon, I know." It is a 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 285 

curious fact that the strange conceit in " Alice 
through the Looking-glass," where effects are 
made to precede their causes, and the Queen cries 
before she has pricked her finger, is actually be- 
lieved in and recognised as a law of nature by many 
people. Indians and half-breeds are usually very 
shy of mentioning their superstitions, for they 
hate ridicule. If they do speak of them, they 
affect to laugh at them themselves. Time and 
again I have heard Indians declare as a joke that 
they could feel the muscles of their backs ache 
where the withy rope cuts into them by which 
they carry a load of moose meat, and declare that 
it was a sure sign that a moose was shortly to die. 
But though they affected to laugh, they in their 
hearts believed thoroughly all they said. 

" Well, John," I said, " I hope your dream will 
come true ; but, talking of dreams, what was that 
story you began to tell me the other day about 
the bullets ? " 

" Oh yes, sir, that was a very curious dream, 
that was; many gentlemen won't believe that 
story, but it's true though. I was hunting with a 
gentleman long ago — in the winter time it was — 
and as we left the camp after breakfast, he laughed, 
and asked me what kind of dreams I had in the 



286 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

night. He wanted to know whether we should 
have any luck, you know, sir. He was a very 
funny gentleman ; he used always to tell the cook 
at night, ' You give John plenty fat pork for 
supper, make him dream good.' Well, sir, I told 
him I had a very curious dream. I thought he 
fired both barrels at a cariboo, and that I caught 
both the bullets in my hand and gave them to 
him. Well, he laughed at that, and said it could 
not be true, and that I could not dream good 
anyhow. But I thought to myself, we'll see. 
So we hunted all day, and in the afternoon came 
upon a large herd of cariboo out on a lake. We 
crept up behind some little bushes to within sixty 
or eighty yards, and then I told the gentleman to 
put on a fresh cap — it was in the old days of 
muzzle loaders, you know, sir — and shoot, for I 
could not get him any nearer. Well, sir, he took 
a long aim, and fired. The cariboos were all lying 
down on the ice, you know, sir, and they just 
jumped up and stood all bunched up together, 
looking about them. ' Fire again, sir,' I said, and 
he took another steady aim, and fired. Nothing 
hit, nothing down, away the cariboo went, tails up, 
not a sign of a wounded one among them. Every 
now and then they would stop and turn round to 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 287 

see what had scared them, and then off again in 
a minute. Oh ! we might have got plenty more 
shots, if we had had a rifle like what you have now, 
sir, but it took some time to load a rifle in those 
days, especially in winter time, when a man can 
scarcely take his fingers out of his mits — and so 
they got clean away. The gentleman was terribly 
mad, threw his rifle down, and swore he would 
never use it again. It seemed to me the shots 
sounded kind of curious somehow, and I thought 
I would just go and see where the bullets went to. 
I had not gone twenty yards, when I found the 
place where one of them had struck the snow. 
A little further on I found where it had struck 
again, and then where it had struck a third time 
a little further on still. And so it went on hopping 
in the snow, the jumps getting shorter and shorter 
each time, and the trail circling round as it went, 
till finally the track ran along in the snow for 
a few feet and stopped. And there I found the 
bullet, picked it up, and put it in my pocket. Well, 
having got one, I thought I would go and trail the 
other bullet : I soon found where that had struck. 
It acted just like the first one, and I picked it up 
also. So I went back to the gentleman, and as he 
was loading the gun, I said, kind of indifferent like, 



288 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

1 Just see if those bullets fit your gun, Captain.' 
' Yes, John,' he says, c and suppose they do, what 
of that ? ' ' Why, Captain,' says I, ' those are 
your bullets, and I picked them up. Now what 
do you say about my dream ? ' Well, he would 
not believe me until I showed him the marks in 
the snow, and he found that the bullets fitted his 
rifle exactly, and then he had to. Lord, sir, I 
have heard him tell that story scores of times, and 
he would get quite angry when people would not 
believe it." 

So we talked and yarned till I grew sleepy and 
dozed off, somewhat against my will, for the nights 
are too lovely to waste in sleep. Nothing can 
exceed the beauty of these northern nights, a 
beauty so calm, grand, majestic, almost awful in 
its majesty, that there exists not a man, I believe, 
on the face of this earth with a spirit so dulled, 
or a mind so harassed, that he could withstand 
its peace-giving power. By day his troubles may 
be too heavy for him, but the night is more potent 
than any drug, than any excitement, to steep the 
soul in forgetfulness. You cannot " bind the 
sweet influence of the Pleiades," nor resist the 
soothing touch of mother Nature, when she reveals 
herself in the calm watches of the night, and her 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 289 

presence filters through all the worldly coverings 
of care, down to the naked soul of man. It is a 
wonderful and strange experience to lie out under 
the stars in the solemn, silent darkness of the 
forest, to watch the constellations rise and set, 
to lie there gazing up through the branches of 
the grand old trees, which have seen another race 
dwell beneath their boughs and pass away, whose 
age makes the little fretful life of man seem in- 
significantly small ; gazing up at planet after 
planet, sun beyond sun, into the profundity of 
space, till this tiny speck in the universe, this 
little earth, with all its discontent and discord, 
its wrangling races, its murmuring millions of 
men, dwindles into nothing, and the mind looks 
out so far beyond, that it falls back stunned 
with the vastness of the vision which looms 
overwhelmingly before it. 

The earth sleeps. A silence that can be felt 
has fallen over the woods. The stars begin to 
fade. A softer and stronger light wells up and 
flows over the scene as the broad moon slowly 
floats above the tree-tops, shining white upon the 
birch trees, throwing into black shadow the sombre 
pines, dimly lighting up the barren, and revealing 
grotesque ghost-like forms of stunted fir and grey 



290 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

rock. The tree trunks stand out distinct in the 
lessening gloom ; the dark pine boughs overhead 
seem to stoop caressingly towards you. Amid a 
stillness that is terrifying, man is not afraid. 
Surrounded by a majesty that is appalling, he 
shrinks not, nor is he dismayed. In a scene of 
utter loneliness he feels himself not to be alone. 
A sense of companionship, a sensation of satis- 
faction, creep over him. He feels at one with 
Nature, at rest in her strong protecting arms. 

As soon as the moon was high enough to shed 
a good light, Noel and I walked down to a little 
point of woods jutting out into the barren to call. 
Putting the birch-bark caller to his lips, Noel 
imitated the long-drawn, wailing cry of the moose, 
and then we sat down wrapped in our blankets, 
patiently to listen and to wait. No answer, per- 
fect stillness prevailed. Presently, with a strange, 
rapidly approaching rush, a gang of wild geese 
passed, clanging overhead, their strong pinions 
whirring in the still air. After pausing about 
half an hour Noel called again, and this time we 
heard a faint sound that made our hearts jump. 
We listened intently and heard it again. It was 
only an owl a long way off calling to its mate in 
the woods. After a while we heard a loon's 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 291 

melancholy quavering scream on the lake, taken 

up by two or three other loons. " Something 

frightens the loons," whispers Noel to me. 

" Mebbe moose coming. I will try another call ; " 

and again the cry of the moose rolled across the 

barren, and echoed back from the opposite wood. 

" Hark ! " says Noel, " what's that ? I hear him 

right across the wood there," and in truth we 

could just make out the faint call of a bull moose 

miles away. The sound got rapidly nearer, he 

was coming up quickly, when we heard a second 

moose advancing to meet him. They answered 

each other for a little while, and then they ceased 

speaking, and the forest relapsed into silence, so 

death-like that it was hard to believe that it ever 

had been or could be broken by any living thing. 

Nothing more was heard for a long time ; not a 

sound vibrated through the frosty stillness of the 

air, till suddenly it was rudely broken by a crash 

like a dead tree falling in the forest, followed 

by a tremendous racket — sticks cracking, hoofs 

pawing the ground, horns thrashing against 

bushes. 

There the moose fought at intervals for about 

two hours, when the noise ceased as suddenly as 

it began, and after a pause we heard one bull 

1 2 



292 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

coming straight across the barren to us, speaking 
as he came along. 

The moose arrived within about fifty or sixty 
yards of us. We could dimly see him in the dark 
shadow of an island of trees. In another second 
he would have been out in the moonlight if we 
had left him alone, but Noel, in his anxiety to 
bring him up, called like a bull, and the moose, 
who had probably had enough of fighting for one 
night, turned right round and went back again 
across the barren. We did not try any more 
calling, but made up our fire and lay down till 
daylight. 

The next night, or rather on the morning after, 
we called up two moose after sunrise, but failed 
from various causes in getting a shot, but on the 
day succeeding that I killed a very large bull. 
We had called without any answer all night, and 
were going home to the principal camp about 
ten in the day, when we heard a cow call. It was 
a dead calm, and the woods were very noisy, dry 
as tinder, and strewn with crisp, dead leaves, but 
we determined to try and creep up to her. I will 
not attempt to describe how we crept up pretty 
near, and waited, and listened patiently for hours, 
till we heard her again, and fixed the exact spot 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 293 

where she was : how we crept and crawled, inch 
by inch, through bushes, and over dry leaves and 
brittle sticks, till we got within sight and easy 
shot of three moose — a big bull, a cow, and a 
two-year-old. Suffice it to say, that the big bull 
died ; he paid the penalty. Female loquacity cost 
him his life. If his lovely but injudicious com- 
panion could have controlled her feminine dis- 
position to talk, that family of moose would still 
have been roaming the woods, happy and united. 

" There are still many things which I should like 
to have told you," said Willie, "if there had been 
time ; but by the smell of the air this spell will have 
broken before morning, and we shan't have another 
night of yarning. I should like to have given you 
one run with buffalo on the plains, and told you of 
a successful stalk up in the Colorado mountains 
that brought me the finest known specimen of the 
mountain sheep, and showed me grizzlies feeding 
on heaps of locusts just under the snow line. I wish 
I could have described a mountain lion which I 
once saw in the middle of a warm summer's night 
in Estes Park, when I was lying awake in bed, and 
which I pursued some distance in the costume 
peculiar to that part of the four-and-twenty hours 



294 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

usually devoted to sleep. I might have carried 
you with me to Newfoundland, to stalk cariboo 
on the great barrens, and taken you on snow-shoes 
in the winter to track moose upon the hardwood 
ridges, when the forest is more glorious perhaps 
even than in the fall. I could have shown you 
glimpses of primitive life among the French- 
speaking ' habitants ' of Lower Quebec and the 
simple Celtic, Gaelic-speaking population of eastern 
Nova Scotia, and given you a peep into lumber 
camps and birch-bark wigwams, and talked much 
to you about Indians — that strange race, which, 
even when it shall have entirely disappeared, will 
have left an enduring mark behind it. Civilised 
nations have passed and left no sign ; but the 
Indian will be remembered by two things at 
least — the birch-bark canoe, which no production 
of the white man can equal for strength, lightness, 
gracefulness, sea-going qualities, and carrying 
capacity, and the snow-shoe, which appears to be 
perfect in its form and, like a violin, incapable of 
development or improvement. There are three 
inventions which the ingenuity of man seems to 
be unable to improve upon, and two of them are 
the works of savages. They are the violin, snow- 
shoes, and birch-bark canoes." 



DAYS IN THE WOODS 295 

Somewhere about four o'clock in the morning 
after the last night I awoke and found that Willie 
Whisper had made up the fire, and was packing 
his few belongings in his blanket. 

" Why, Willie," said I, " what is the matter ? 
What are you doing ? " 

" What am I doing ! Why, going to make a 
start as soon as I have made some tea, and if you 
take my advice you will do the same. It rained 
heavily all the early part of the night away back. 
It will be raining here pretty soon. Put your head 
out and you will smell it, and see the moon riding 
through a southerly scud. The ice is not thick. 
It will break up quickly under the press of water 
that is coming down. There's going to be a 
strong thaw but a very short one, and the next 
frost means a freeze up for the winter. I have to 
hustle to get out to settlements for a few neces- 
saries, and back into the woods before all the 
waterways are closed, and you have no time to 
lose if you want to make your winter camp by 



canoe." 



Willie was right. As he finished speaking a few 
drops of rain fell spluttering into the fire, and I 
found heavy masses of low flying clouds from the 
South-West drifting across the setting moon. 



296 CANADIAN NIGHTS 

The air was soft and warm, redolent of resinous 
pines and clean wet earth. There was no doubt 
about the thaw. Going down to the water's edge 
I found a rise of several feet, a strong current 
rushing out, and the thin ice all breaking away. 
So I roused up Noel, made up our packs, brewed 
some strong tea, said good-bye to the newcomers, 
who seemed disinclined to exchange shelter for 
torrential rain, and plunged into the dawn to 
launch our dug-out and pole up against the stream. 
Willie Whisper came down with us to the water's 
edge. " God be with you," he said, as he wrung 
my hand, " surely we shall meet again sometime, 
somewhere. Perhaps in the flesh — I don't know. 
I think not, but who can tell ? So long ! " 

I never did meet him again, though after some 
years I did once again taste the freedom of my 
well-beloved woods. I heard that he had died 
as he had lived, in the deep woods, alone among 
the trees. 



NOTE 

The substance of these Sketches first appeared in the pages 
of the " Nineteenth Century" to the Editor of which 
the Author is indebted for permission to republish them. 



Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &-- Co. 
at Paul's Work, Edinburgh 



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